Bad Newz

The Mike Vick case has been discussed in much detail in the past few months, much of the discussion concerned with what his punishment should be for the crimes that he helped commit. While he needs to be punished for what he did, more of the discussion now needs to turn to what it is about professional athletes that often causes them to feel they are above the law and can get away with nearly anything. The recent OJ Simpson event as well as the Pacman Jones situation shows other examples of how American culture places such a high importance on celebrities that makes many feel like they are untouchable.

In this week’s Sports Illustrated article, seen here there is a very good article that discusses what factors led Michael Vick to believe he could get away with all that he did. Vick is similar to many professional athletes, in that he came from a family that often did not have much money and grew up with limited options. When this occurs most athletes find it very hard to deal and handle their new success and popularity so they turn back to what is familiar to them which is where they came from and the friends they had before they became famous. Sometimes these friends from back home as in Michael Vicks case have questionable motives for staying in touch with their new famous friends. Many feel like it is their ticket out of the rough neighborhood so they tag along and live the celebrity life through their professional athlete friends. This can be seen in many examples ranging from, Ray Lewis, Jamal Lewis, and Robert Traylor. All these people circled themselves with people that were blinded by their friend’s wealth.

Professional athletes often feel obliged to help those that they grew up with. They feel they owe it their friends to share their newfound wealth, and their friends are more than happy to live the good life with money that is not theirs. There are some reasons why athletes feel they have to give their money to the people they knew from home. The first reason is that they feel indebted and sometimes guilty that they made it big and their friends did not. Many people growing up in low income areas turn to gangs and violence as a means for making money and getting respect, athletes sometimes get a “free pass” from this life because they have a chance to do something without turning to the streets. If they do make it big they often feel like they have a debt to pay to those that let them not join gangs. Another reason that athletes feel obliged to bring people up with them is that they knew these people growing up and went through tough times together. They feel like they would not have made it without these friendships. Successful people are always told not to forget where they came from. This creates a sense of communal pressure that their community places on those that have come from the area. The biggest factor that leads professional athletes to surround themselves with people that they are familiar with is that they are often forced to grow up at very young ages and they want to have a sense of security and they accomplish this by bringing old friends around. Sports teams and colleges begin scouting and following athletes sometimes when they are as young as 13 or 14 years old. People see that these people can become wealthy and begin to try and associate with these kids. This creates a very tough wall of trust that athletes erect in order to protect themselves from being taken advantage of. This sticks with them even after they make it to the pros and often times they remain very wary of anyone that they haven’t known for an extended period of time. Unfortunately even when people are genuinely trying to help athletes, many do not listen because they immediately believe that everyone is just there to take advantage of them.

With more and more athletes getting in trouble because of the people they associate with something needs to be done to try and change this trend. I think more attention needs to be paid to what these sports leagues can do to help these young people who are thrown into an unfamiliar world and left to make their own decisions based on limited knowledge. Sports leagues such as the NFL have programs established to try and help this but it is only for first year players, after that they are left on their own to wade through the constant pressure of being a celebrity in American culture.