Tweets that led to a Crestview High School cross country team member's dismissal reminded me of how much and how little things have changed since I was a high school athlete in the mid-1970s.
SINS KEPT QUIET
Back in my day, we didn’t have cable, the internet or social media. A friend was someone whom we knew pretty well and, that in turn, also knew us well.
We didn’t count our friends by the number of people we knew on Facebook because Facebook was still some 30 years away from coming into existence. And we weren’t concerned with how many people followed us on Twitter or Instagram.
One could argue that our youthful sins and mistakes were kept private because the world wasn’t watching our every word or action.
That’s not to say young people didn’t get in trouble and that high school athletes never got caught doing something wrong. But it was a little easier to keep our little corner of the world in our little corner.
Even so, athletes of my generation, and every generation before and after, have always been looked to as role models.
Maybe it isn’t fair that a young man or woman’s actions are more scrutinized because they can run faster, jump higher or throw a ball farther than their classmates. But like it or not, athletes have been held as a standard for behavior on and off the field of play.
NO CHOICE
Former Auburn University and National Basketball Association great Charles Barkley has long claimed, “I'm not a role model.”
What Barkley and so many athletes at every level fail to realize is that they have no choice in being a role model.
It’s not just the superstar athlete who has to live up to a higher standard. Every young man and woman who puts on school colors is being watched by at least one set of young eyes.
I only played high school football for two years and ran track for one year. The first year I played football, I got into one game for exactly two plays.
The following summer, I was working at an old full-service gas station, and a boy of 9 or 10 came up to me and said, “I know who you are. You’re a Dolphin football player.”
I’ve never forgotten that day and the lesson I learned: that even a third-teamer is a role model.
Nobody has to tell me that athletes and coaches aren’t perfect, and I don’t expect them to be. But they are held to a higher standard.
When one steps into the arena of competition, like it or not, they become somebody’s role model — with all the responsibilities that go with that unwanted position.
Email News Bulletin Sports Editor Randy Dickson, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: SIDELINE OBSERVATIONS: Like it or not, athletes are role models