Flawed idols offer teaching moments
You undoubtedly have heard this is one of those teaching moments, when we can educate youth about making better decisions in the wake of famous people doing bad things.
It’s a good concept but doesn’t indicate much progress.
This will: a time when celebrity doesn’t automatically translate in our minds to idol.
It falls on us to make it happen. The adults. The ones with supposedly more wisdom to know where best to steer a child’s flattering glance. Sadly, we’re still stuck in neutral when it comes to such guiding.
It’s been, what, centuries?
That’s the troublesome part. Some just can’t seem to reach a point where it’s no longer a shock when those we watch and cheer and admire for their talent prove to be imperfect. The world shouted that baseball sold its soul this week when its best player admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.
Can you shout something 100 times and still produce the same impact?
When we spend years and years building mortals into superheroes because they can slam a ball 450 feet from home plate or swim the length of a pool faster than a sailfish or sing an R&B tune better than most alive, it’s natural younger eyes also become captivated with such feats and those who achieve them.
Kids aren’t born to revere sports and entertainment stars as infallible figures. They are raised to do so, either by those who share a dinner table with them or the never-ending nauseous media adoration thrust upon such celebrity.
It’s also not fair to those being slapped down from the pedestal quicker than we place them upon it. To the likes of Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps and Chris Brown and Miguel Tejada and Charles Barkley and Barry Bonds and if I kept writing names eligible for such a list, it would go on for days and your head would swell.
It’s not fair because they all were seriously flawed from the beginning. It’s called being human.
That’s the part many have trouble acknowledging, at least until the defects are revealed. Then, we are all too willing to pounce and destroy.
What a few weeks. Phelps does what thousands of other 23-year-olds on the planet do across college campuses, the only difference being no one else walks into parties with a resume of 14 shiny Olympic gold medals.
So when a picture of him inhaling from a bong surfaces across the front of a British tabloid, it’s as if he just went Michael Vick on your family pet, or at least shrunk into a pothead the level of Amy Winehouse.
Rodriguez confesses to using banned substances earlier in his career, an admittance that comes only after a Sports Illustrated report uncovers the truth. The predictable outcry follows about how the story will ruin the upcoming season and that baseball again is a sport no one can believe in.
Really? I’m over steroids in sports like I am cowards who don’t leave their numbers on profanity-laden voice mails or their real names when hiding behind message board posts.
If you can’t accept some form of cheating happens at all levels of sport and still find a way to enjoy the competition, it’s best you find something else to follow, because if not you will own a life of constant disappointment.
Failure doesn’t stop with sports stars. I couldn’t tell you much about Chris Brown’s recording career, other than for some time he has been painted as a good, responsible, peaceful kid. Then he is accused of assaulting his famous girlfriend, Rihanna, of choking her into an unconscious state before speeding away to avoid police.
None of the aforementioned actions is acceptable, and yet some are more forgivable than others. But wasting one second of time overanalyzing those whose misbehavior made headlines is useless.
We should truly spend it educating.
We should answer a child’s questions about Rodriguez with a newspaper clipping about US Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his unbelievable landing in the Hudson River.
We should respond to the mention of Phelps’ poor judgment by listing just a few of the thousands and thousands of organ donors who have provided new lifelines for others, often complete strangers.
We should counter the sordid tale of Brown and his temper with reports of three college students on spring break risking their lives to save others in a hotel fire.
Sure, events of the last few weeks offered us another one of those teaching moments. But before we sit down with the kids and impart all the wisdom we supposedly own, we should remember an important point ourselves:
Celebrity does not erase imperfection. Idols shouldn’t be constructed on a stat sheet or record label. Those are places for humans. Flawed ones.
None so important to lose a wink of sleep over.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at 702-383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.
