Is Athlete-Role Model Concept Destroying
Sports And America?
Outkick,
by
Jason Whitlock
Original Article
Posted By: TXLakeRat,
9/12/2020 3:22:58 PM
Nearly 30 years ago, in a 1993 Nike commercial, professional basketball legend Charles Barkley fired the first shot at the “role model” concept popularized by Columbia University sociologist Robert K. Merton in the aftermath of the 1960s counterculture movement. “I am not a role model,” Barkley proclaimed in the half-minute spot. “I’m not paid to be a role model. I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” Corrections*
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
Ming 9/12/2020 3:40:57 PM (No. 538719)
Mr. Whitlock is quickly becoming a 'must read' for me. I always listened to him on KC radio when I lived there.
7 people like this.
We need many more celebrities like Sir Charles. Why oh why do so many actors, athletes, and other denizens of the "15 minutes of fame" clan think that they should use their time in the spotlight to preach hellfire and damnation to the rest of us?
As one of my favorite coaches told his team, "Coaches should coach, refs should ref, and players should play." In other words, concentrate on your job. Imagine a world in which doctors, checkout clerks, pizza deliverers, plumbers, accountants, etc, etc, all button-holed you to detail their political preferences. Everybody, stay in your lane and try to maintain some class!
8 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Urgent Fury 9/12/2020 4:58:43 PM (No. 538779)
Outkick, Clay Travis and Whitlock are must reads, and they are on Fox Sports in the mornings on radio. Stark contrast to BSPN and other national sports outlets. Travis knows the COVID reation is a scam, and uses data to back it up.
4 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bgarrett 9/12/2020 6:17:28 PM (No. 538811)
Its pretty weird that Americans worship grow men who play a game with a little ball and scorn fathers
5 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
mobiusmman 9/12/2020 6:32:28 PM (No. 538823)
To the cowardly professional athletes.
How easy it must be for you to sit back in the safety of your palatial homes and shout “Black Lives Matter,” “Whites are racists” which adds gasoline to the fires and furies that are hurting innocent people, destroying innocent lives, ruining once great cities.
How self-satisfying it must be for you to count your millions while receiving adulation from weak-spined teammates and coaches, sycophant sports analysts, commentators, writers, toadying politicians, bird-brained entertainment stars and the fawning media for championing an avowed Marxist racist organization (BLM) and screaming about a non-existing “systemic racism”
How brave you must feel in a TV studio, team locker room, on a basketball court, baseball diamond, gridiron -- spouting your BLM bigotry instead of showing real courage by marching through the streets of Chicago’s South Side and confronting the gang members and thugs who kill innocent Black people – you and your teammates patrolling those streets and protecting the thousands of good, law-abiding, decent Black people who live in constant fear. But that would take real guts, wouldn’t it.
How cowardly you really are for, not once, wearing a hat that said “Two-year-old JoJo Malone’s Black Life Mattered.” You know, the little Black girl murdered by a Black killer. Nor did you demand a boycott of games, a national vigil to underscore the horror of dozens and dozens of innocent Black children who have been wounded, maimed, murdered by Blacks “gangstas.” I guess the destruction of those young, promising, hopeful lives must not matter to you since you haven’t raised your voice to protest those tragedies.
So, I guess as far as your concerned –
To hell with the dead Black children. To hell with their grieving mom and dads and brothers and sisters and grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles. To hell with devoting your fame and fortune and influence to tirelessly working to stop the thousands of yearly black-on-black murders. Instead, you “rush to judgement”, rush to giving a “wink-and-a-nod” to “Burn down America” when a Black criminal is shot or killed by a cop. But to hell with JoJo Malone.
How sad.
Even sadder,(despite Charles Barkley's perspective), you are perceived as role models – especially to Black youth. But you’re harmful role models by pretending to be deeply concerned about justice, freedom, people’s right to live without fear while you promote a Marxist, anti-White, violent racist organization.
Saddest of all -- you could have been wonderful role models. Symbols of and catalysts for a better America for all Americans.
Instead, you’re helping to tear down America by symbolizing, supporting and promoting –
Systemic racism -- not of Blacks --but by Blacks.
As-well-as --
Systemic hypocrisy --
Systemic duplicity --
Systemic dishonesty --
Systemic violence.
But, worst of all, you’re promoting systemic cowardice.
Shame on you.
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
PlayItAgain 9/12/2020 7:04:07 PM (No. 538843)
Excellent article. I deeply respect Mr. Whitlock. But I think he has it backwards.
It's the "it's OK for immoral arrogant idiots to be pro athletes" concept that is destroying sports.
As an extension, the "it's OK for immoral arrogant idiots to be journalists" concept that has destroyed our news media as well.
I'm not a big fan of Barkley, but at least he has a sense of his place in this world. And he respects the place and value of other people.
1 person likes this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Strike3 9/12/2020 7:38:43 PM (No. 538864)
Uh, no. Their racism, arrogance, greed, sense of entitlement, disrespect for the flag and the country is what is destroying sports. They haven't been role models for at least four decades.
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
kono 9/12/2020 10:39:13 PM (No. 538973)
I think the Barkley ad for Nike (cited in the lede) marked the high water point in my opinion of the Round Mound of Rebound. Didn't seem to do much good, though, did it? Kids still idolize sports heroes, many of whom are better at being NEGATIVE role models for everybody except for aspiring gangstas.
1 person likes this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
JunkYardDog 9/13/2020 12:50:02 AM (No. 539030)
If they want to be role models let them lead by example, individually. Not as part of a 'movement'. And leave the lecture for your own time-not during a game.
0 people like this.
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