Maybe just don’t make them role models?

Kendrick Monk and Nick Darcy (from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-08/olympic-boss-wont-rule-out-axing-swimmers/4059432?section=olympics. Original source: AAP/Facebook)

For some reason, this image has caused a furore over the past few days. If you don’t know who they are, this is Olympic swimmers Nick Darcy (on the left) and Kenrick Monk (on the right).

I have to say I have been flummoxed (I love that word) by this. I am really not sure why two guys posting a stupid photo on Facebook is in any way controversial (even though I am for much stricter gun control). It seems to me like the kind of thing that lots of people would do on trips to the US.

However, it has given me the opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon in our society of automatically making sports people role models. No matter who they are, we seem obsessed with putting our sports people up on a pedestal and expecting them to play a serious leadership role in our society. We then get shocked when, as commonly happens, a sports person does something stupid.

Thinking about it logically, it is a kind of ridiculous expectation. What we are doing is choosing young people (sometimes at the age of 14 or 15) based on particular physical skills, putting them in groups with other young people and then giving them lots of money and opportunities to travel. Once we have done that, we then tell them that they have to behave, all the time. We expect them to be role models (often when that’s not necessarily what they want or are good at) and put immense pressure on them to meet those expectations. It’s the kind of pressure and leadership qualities that we often don’t expect from people in other professions until much later in their careers.

Some people do a really good job of this. For example, I think the rugby played David Pocock makes a great role model. Others may point to someone like Patrick Rafter as an exceptional sports role model. These are the kind of people who both have great sports skills and great leadership skills. But a lot of the others  are going to do what a lot of young (and old) people do; get drunk, act like idiots and post the photos of them doing so on Twitter and Facebook.

My point is that I don’t think the problem here is Darcy or Monk. They, just like everyone else in the world have or are doing stupid things. Most of it is harmless, yet because of their physical abilities we are placing unrealistic expectations on them to constantly behave.

Maybe instead of complaining about what bad role models they make we could change our ideas of who should be role models in our society. It would be nice to choose our role models based on broader characteristics than one’s sporting abilities. Maybe we could look up to people because of their leadership skills, or the positive things they are doing in society. Some of these people will be sports people, others will not. On top of all of this, I think it’s about time we realised that sometimes people (young or old) do stupid things. Just because they are a sports person that doesn’t mean that is going to stop and as long as it is harmless, really, who cares?

ps. this analysis does not apply for things like rape or physical assault. These issues are serious and should be treated as such. It is never acceptable.

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