More and more these days, you hear about how professional athletes are getting into trouble with the law. Just turn on Sportscenter on ESPN and there is gonna be one story about how an athlete is in trouble with either their college, the law, or the team they are a part of. When my brother and I are watching Sportscenter and they are talking about how an athlete is in trouble he always says, “Oh, what do you know? Another athlete in trouble, pretty typical there.”
You see, professional athletes are held more accountable for their actions causing them to be stereotyped as people who are always getting in trouble with the law or just causing attention to them.
There are a couple professional athletes who have potentially ruined the reputation for athletes amongst non-sport fans. A few trouble worthy candidates include Ben Roethlisberger (has two sexual assault law suits), Michael Vick (accused of dog fighting ending up spending 23 months in federal prison), Tiger Woods (alleged affairs with numerous women, infidelity with this wife). All three of these athlete’s social life are more magnified than any other athlete. These guys are so elite at the respective sports they play causing them to be part of the upper echelon of athletes.
Look, we all get that athletes have millions of dollars to spend causing professional athletes to go wild with their spending (another argument for another time). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching all of these athletes perform in their sport at a high level but seriously there needs to be severe consequences for athletes actions or else the world will just keep producing them.
But wait, there are athletes who actually do well for the world? Yes! There are a countless amount of athletes who help out their community to help save the negative perception of professional athletes.
NBA Cares has numerous programs to help out the community that their team is located in including NBA Fit, NBA Green, Basketball without Borders, and Read to Achieve.
A couple years ago when hurricane Katrina hit the states amongst the Gulf of Mexico, mainly New Orleans, the NBA announced they would help out saying, “The NBA Cares initiative will feature all members of the NBA Family, including players, teams, the National Basketball Players Association, and all of the NBA’s media and marketing partners. Together, they will perform more than 30,000 hours of hands-on community service”.
The NBA is not the only professional sport to help out with the community; the NFL has programs as well as the MLB and the PGA Golf Tour.
The NFL has a program called the USO that goes over seas and helps support the troops in the war, which first started in 1966 going to Vietnam and Asia. These programs have been going on for a long time but they never get the media attention for it because the media loves to focus on the bad things that happen in sports. I understand that the negative attention gets more publicity over nice, positive news but it’s always refreshing to hear news about the good guys in professional athletics.
Numerous athletes have their own foundation including the Tiger Woods Foundation. He created this program years before his infidelities came out. His program not only introduces less fortunate children to golf but to help them focus on career exploration and preparation.
Sure, the prestigious professional athletes getting into trouble are held more accountable for their actions over other athletes but that doesn’t mean their reputation should ruin it for everyone else. The community service programs that professional sporting leagues create are not to help their personal reputation with the world but because they truly care about the troubles the world is enduring. When the world is struggling say hurricane Katrina and the earthquake that hit Haiti, the NBA, NFL, MLB, and PGA Tour are usually the first to help out to make a difference.
Don’t just listen to the media about elite professional athletes who run into trouble with the law, make an effort to find out about the real professional athletes that do something great for their community and the world.
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