From heroes to villains: Why we cannot always admire today’s athletes

Today’s world sees millions living in poverty and barely scraping with finances. There are thousands whose incomes lie well below the six figures. But for all these, the most common entity of pleasure or entertainment is sports. Not having enough to burn your pots at home makes you have countless headaches. But watching your favorite athlete surmount the insurmountable or your favorite team achieve the unachievable brings smiles to even those faces languishing in desperation.

Withal, in a society where we feel our youth population is growing far too quickly and it is near impossible to mask the verity from them, what are we mature adults going to tell them about athletes faltering? In a day where the feeling to don the jersey of a team or country is comparatively unparalleled, do we become responsible enough to label this a materialistic aspect of human living?

Although it can be argued that many of us look up to those outside of sports, there are those whose felicities lie only in the aforementioned domain. And they aren’t just the infantile children, like little John or a young teenager like Felix. Adults, whose age can no longer be considered as tender, also endure in the satisfaction drawn from sports.

Oscar Pistorius

Like a wise sage once said, sports has become as much as a part and parcel of our lives as there is anything today. Perhaps it is the only realm that foregoes the borders created by race, age, gender and any of those of anomalies. But such actions of imprudence cause us to remain wary of our everyday heroes.

All of us make mistakes at this age but as we grew up, we aspired to be different than that. Aaron Hernandez, Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius weren’t always focused on killing someone or doping as they molded their talents in sports. It isn’t deniable that they too, like several others, went through hardships before success came along. But when it did, they misused the power of the pedestal sports has given them.

It is an age where there lies a possibility that many of us are easily convinced by the athletes that we watch on television or read about on the internet. But the certain breeds of them thwart us into pondering if it is even worth emulating any of them.

We can continue to admire the good pedigree of athletes that service humanity and bring happiness to our lives. But the sagas of Aaron Hernandez, Oscar Pistorius and Lance Armstrong have taught us that it is unforeseeable to think our heroes too can become villains. And we, being responsible sports fanatics that we always will be, need to come to terms with that. This isn’t a movie but just mere reality.

Disclaimer: The characters of John Karson and Felix are fictional and bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead.