Athletes not paid to be role models

In 1993 while he was a power forward for the Phoenix Suns, Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Charles Barkley did a television commercial for Nike. The minimalist black-and-white spot had Barkley performing various athletic moves on a basketball court by himself. And amid a symphony of screeching sneaker soles and thunderous bounces of a basketball on hardwood, it was Barkley’s first sentence that rang the loudest: “I am not a role model.”

Athletes are not role models. Tell anyone on the street who has heard about Ray Rice, Greg Hardy and Adrian Peterson, among countless others. They’ll tell you the same thing: “You’re damn right they’re not.” So why does America continue to be shocked by the actions of athletes, and why does the sordid fascination with their private lives persist? It’s as if the fact that being able to carry a ball a couple yards while getting tackled by 280-pound men puts them on a higher level of moral accountability. It doesn’t.

Barkley’s declaration is as salient more than 20 years after its release as it was controversial and thought provoking in 1993. The world, enamored with the disarming smile and the mind-blowing marketing potential of basketball’s greatest competitor in Michael Jordan, turned a deaf ear to Barkley’s assertions. Why would Barkley say such a thing at a time when Jordan, perhaps America’s biggest role model, was enjoying the zenith of his popularity?

Perhaps Barkley felt and saw from an athlete’s perspective the untenable nature of living up to the standards of a Jordan. Some high-profile athletes maintain a carefully manicured image throughout their careers to optimize their marketability. Their characteristics make them de facto role models, but a distinction should be made: For every Michael Jordan, there are countless others who are not as admirable. Just ask the players in today’s game who fall victim to ceaseless comparisons to His Airness — LeBron James and Kobe Bryant have transcended the game with their conduct off the court in their own ways. Bryant endured legal troubles over sexual assault allegations, and James was cast as a villain for his departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers, and though both eventually recovered, they always seem to fall short of Jordan’s seemingly bulletproof legacy.

If athletes aren’t supposed to be role models, then what is an athlete’s function? Athletes are paid on the basis of their capabilities to contribute to a team, and their role in helping the team win. The money these athletes receive are contracts derived primarily through viewership; ticket revenue from attendance at games and money from television contracts.

When NFL contracts are negotiated, the primary point of leverage is an athlete’s performance in comparison with another athlete; rarely is the athlete’s marketability or their reputation off the field taken into strong consideration unless there are serious interests that would lead to an athlete being suspended from play.

Carolina Panthers defensive lineman Greg Hardy, who was convicted on two counts of misdemeanor assault on a female and communicating threats, was paid $770,588 for his non-participation in Sunday’s game. Carolina head coach Ron Rivera announced Monday that Hardy would not be suspended but that the organization would continue to evaluate the situation before deciding on his active/inactive status for next week’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to SB Nation. The distinction to be made is that suspension is punitive without pay, whereas active/inactive status still means Hardy is paid.

The outrage machine was in full force, with an editorial in the Charlotte Observer calling for Hardy’s suspension from the team, going so far as to state that Panthers’ owner Jerry Richardson “jeopardize[d] his moral credibility by covering for [Hardy].”

There’s a problem with this line of logic: It implies that Richardson has a moral responsibility to suspend one of his team’s assets for an action that the player performed outside the supervision of the team. Richardson has no such legal obligation given the pending nature of Hardy’s appeal, which is set for jury trial on Nov. 17. The crux of the problem is that Hardy is a valuable asset to the Panthers, and there are no stipulations in place barring his participation in games.

To contrast, there’s Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones and his actions when former Cowboys’ wide receiver Michael Irvin stabbed teammate Everett McIver in the neck with a pair of barber’s scissors in an altercation in 1998. The Dallas Morning News reported that Jones brokered a “high six-figure settlement” between McIver and Irvin in exchange for McIver’s silence regarding the incident. Irvin had pleaded no contest to felony cocaine possession in 1996, and a violation of his parole could have resulted in Irvin being sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Irvin-McIver incident occurred during a convenient wrinkle in time in which information did not travel nearly as quickly as it would now. If such a thing were to occur in today’s day and age, Irvin would undoubtedly have been thrown in prison — and would not be a studio analyst for the NFL Network, which he currently is.

The world has come a long way since the Irvin-McIver incident. Bridging the speed of information travel between 1998 and now would take much longer than the space in this column permits. But should athletes continue to be considered role models despite everything we know about them? It’s hard to conceive what constitutes a proper role model these days. But with every dollar an athlete is paid for a jersey sale or endorsement contract on the basis of his or her reputation comes a significant responsibility to uphold the name that gets printed on the back of a jersey or signed next to an “X” on an endorsement contract.

It’s time that the NFL and other leagues took strong preventative educational measures, instead of outright punitive ones, to address athlete accountability off the field. If off-the-field issues become the customer’s business, it’s time the NFL seriously make it their business — before it explodes in their face like it has in the past few weeks.

In the meantime, don’t expect your athletes to be role models.

Euno Lee is a senior majoring in English literature. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan. His column, “Euno What Time It Is,” runs Tuesdays.