Response to Leah's "Athletes and the Fall From Grace"

            Leah, you bring about an excellent point about how fans should try to refrain from idealizing players for it can only lead to disappointment. I enjoyed the fact that you had revealed two baseball players and their, as you have stated, “fall from grace.” I was unfamiliar with the scandals of Alex Rodriguez and Josh Hamilton for I do not follow baseball, but I am glad you had shed some light on how athletes can prove to be great disappointments to their very fans. I personally dislike it when athletes, singers, actors, etc., have scandals for it is unfair to their fans for they provide a bad example to them. Athletes are to have the mindset of being good role models for the youth for they are, in certain cases, the most influential figures in the lives of the youth. I understand your supposition and agree with it fully that athletes are only human and that we should hold them to a standard of role models and that advancing them to a higher level will surely disappoint their fans. Worshipping athletes and positioning them at a higher level is not only bad for the fans but also bad for the players. The reason in which this may be bad for the players is because it can make them seem as someone they are not—gods.

Personally, worship is too strong a word to be used towards the passion one feels about an athlete and a sports team. To categorize athletes as “gods” to me sounds ridiculous—and this can be the problem with athletes and the way they see themselves; athletes can take performance-inducing drugs in order to obviously perform better, and to fulfill the image that their fans place upon them. Athletes have to live up to the reputation and expectations their fans give them and the maybe the only possible way to live up to this is by taking these drugs for it can be humanly impossible to perform by those standards. I think it was very interesting for you to discuss this issue for it is very open-ended and there is no definite answer. After all, athletes are only human, and they are to live their lives, but with obvious limitations.