Essay, Research Paper: Athletic Heroes

Athletes As Heroes
Are there any sport heroes left in society today or have they all diminished? There are people who believe that there are sport heroes in todays society and there are people who believe that there is no such thing as sport heroes nowadays. When socie
is at two different poles then there are three characteristics of athletes that need to be looked at in order to see from which perspective the pessimistic and optimistic people are coming from. These three characteristics are: shallowness, flawed co
lexity, and compartmentalization. There is also another controversy of whether antiheroes are heroes or not.
For shallowness, pessimists believe that athletes do not have the traditional characteristics of heroes (helping others successfully) and that they are noticed because of their fame, fortune and good looks. They think that athletes should not be consi
red as athletes but should be seen as celebrities. However, optimists believe that athletes have lots of depth of character and are strong and healthy and are influential heroes. I agree with the pessimists to some extent, but I agree more so with the
ptimists. I think that most athletes of today are money deprived and that they are noticed because of their fame, fortune and good looks and media tends to do a good job of helping the athletes in that area. However, that does not mean that those athl
es do not have good character and therefore are not good role models. For example, Michael Jordan had fame, fortune and good looks and he was a good hero. There are people who look upto him and who want to be like him. Even though he does not play ba
etball anymore, there are kids who still adore his basketball skills and who want to have strong determination like his. Michael Jordan worked hard getting to the NBA. When he was young and even when he got into the NBA, he practised playing basketbal
and perfecting his moves day and night. I am not saying that every athlete should be considered a hero but an athlete such as Michael Jordan should be considered a hero.
For flawed complexity, pessimists strongly believe that media is used to reveal the athlete. Optimists view athletes as of social variety, flexibility and tolerance of self-criticism. A pessimist named Rader thinks that society before seeked national
nity and the athletes helped society seek it whereas now athletes fight over salaries and have drug problems and that these things are affecting society. An optimists named Crepeau, believes that heroes change as the society changes and that is why we
ve heroes till this day. Nixon said that heroes sell the ideologies of the American Dream and consumption to a broad cross-section of American sport fans. Athletes can be influential towards social change because of their fame which would lead to le
ership roles beyond athletics and another reason is that if they are active in any leadership roles then they can still give input on social change movements. I believe that athletes can be influential in positive and negative ways. Athletes such as B
Johnson can be influential in negative ways because he used steroids (drugs) to excel in sports and some people might think that by using steroids they can get better results in whatever sport they play. The example about Michael Jordan that I gave ea
ier on can be used in the positive light. I also believe that media over emphasizes some things that athletes do and so media also influences the society. Maybe if media did not exaggerate every little negative thing an athlete does then maybe there w
ld be less negative influence on society.