Where Have All the Heroes Gone? by Stephen D. Mosher Racism. Sexual assault. Biting an opponent’s ear. These are the actions of our "national heroes"? Why do we make sports figures into heroes, anyway? Do athletes have any responsibility to act as role models? We asked associate professor of exercise and sport sciences Stephen D. Mosher to give us a little background on sport in the United States, so we can make up our own minds. In the opening scenes of Robert Redford’s The Natural, Roy Hobbs’s father teaches his son how to pitch a baseball but also warns him, "You have a gift, Roy. But if you rely too much on your gift, you’ll fail." During one of the endless bus rides through the North Carolina League in Bull Durham, veteran catcher Crash Davis tells rookie Nuke Lalouche, "You don’t respect yourself, which is your problem; but you don’t respect the game, and that’s my problem." When we survey the contemporary American sport landscape, we are struck by the almost never-ending displays of immaturity (the frustrated American Olympic men’s ice hockey team trashing their hotel rooms in Nagano), shameless self-promotion (the NBA/WNBA’s two-ball fiasco during the 1998 all-star weekend), blatant profit taking (Wayne Huizenga’s dismantling of the Florida Marlins less than two weeks after they won the 1997 World Series), elitist protectionism (the PGA, trying to prevent Casey Martin from joining its ranks by claiming that walking is integral to golf), overtly racist slurs (Fuzzy Zoeller’s comments on Tiger Woods’s eating habits and several recent incidents in the NHL), and personal violence (Latrell Sprewell’s attack on Golden State coach P. J. Carlesimo). We ask ourselves: Where have all the heroes gone? Where is the nobility of sport? Who holds true to the ideals of the game? Who cares about sportsmanship and playing fair? Is it all just about winning? The best athletes we can come up with to be role models for our children are those like Cal Ripken Jr. and Tara Lipinski. What exactly does Ripken do to have earned his hero status? Go to work every day and do his job just like countless other citizens? What advice for living life can come from the mouth of Lipinski? She’s not even 16, has spent over half of her life skating, and already she’s writing her second autobiography? They are, however, reminders that celebrity is not fame. Moreover, the most honest athlete today may be Charles Barkley, who insists, "I am not a role model!" These are the kinds of issues explored every day at Ithaca College by those students enrolled in courses in the sport sciences. Sport management and sports information and communication majors work toward understanding these issues with a keen eye on their own particular preprofessional career goals. Sport studies majors and minors are more interested in these questions for their own sake. Perhaps the most important lesson that sport sciences students learn is that they are studying an institution governed more by mythology than science, more by beliefs than facts. Every sport sciences student is challenged to question those beliefs. The popular belief that at one time sports were played for the love of the game but "today it’s all about money" is a fiction. Even the "great American pastime," baseball, changed its rules radically throughout the late 1800s in order to make the game more adversarial, more marketable. Wherever did we come up with the belief that sport builds character or that it teaches us teamwork and how to be "good sports," how to be modest in victory and gracious in defeat? We must understand this before we can even ask our athletes to be our heroes. Sport has not always been considered a good thing in American life. The Puritans, in their attempt to reform the Church of England, sought to squelch virtually all forms of organized rituals, holy days, pageantry, symbols, and play associated with the Roman Catholic church. Sporting pastimes in early America involved gambling (horse racing, bowling), violence (gouging, cockfighting), or both (boxing); all those directly connected with Catholic holidays were discouraged. However, the Puritans did approve "lawful" sport that could "refresh the spirit" or better prepare people to fulfill their religious duties. Lawful sports included fishing, hunting, and swimming. Children’s play was also tolerated. Nonetheless, the sporting traditions of the citizenry remained impossible to fully regulate. These activities were the province of the poor, the working class, children, and single, young men. But starting in the 1850s, as an outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening, social reformers again sought to govern the recreation of the greater society. Catharine Beecher’s concept of womanhood --- the "cult of domesticity" --- and Thomas Higginson’s concept of manhood --- "muscular Christianity" --- were the first sports-specific manifestations of this movement. The ideas gained momentum because advances in science, medicine, and technology, as well as the move away from an active agrarian lifestyle, meant that people no longer had physical activity, with its side perks of endurance and stamina, built into their daily lives. People were becoming sedentary. For the first time in modern history, sport was seen to serve a purpose in developing the character of both boys and girls. Sport and physical exercise would assist girls in becoming healthy homemakers and nurturers and would prepare boys to enter the professional world. Basketball itself was invented by Dr. James Naismith, who’d been charged with creating a game that could be played indoors during the winter and would embrace all of the ideals of the Muscular Christian movement regarding teamwork, self-sacrifice, obedience, self-control, and loyalty. The mottoes of the play movement organizations reveal volumes about their underlying purpose: "Mind, Body, Spirit" (YMCA), "Wohelo" --- Work, Health, Love (Campfire), "Be Prepared" (Girl and Boy Scouts), "Head, Heart, Hands, Health" (4-H). The pledges of these movements are even more revealing. 4-H’s pledge is I pledge/My Head to clearer thinking,/My Heart to greater loyalty,/My Hands to larger service, and/My Health to better living,/for my club, my community, my country, and my world. Even Little League Baseball has its own reformist pledge and motto: "Character, Courage, Loyalty." Perhaps the most important key to understanding the problem of asking athletes to be role models is found in the modern Olympic movement. There is no doubt that the ideals of amateurism established in Britain at the end of the 19th century and promulgated through the Olympic Games served to separate people by social class. Many people fondly talk of the nobility of the "taking part," the "inclusion of all" in the Olympics. But the amateur code actually sought to prevent the working class from corrupting the sporting diversions of the wealthy. Simply put, the requirement that competitors be amateurs meant those who had to work for a living could not compete. Consequently, the "civilized gentlemen" of the ruling elite were able to exclude from sport virtually anyone they wanted. In America, the self-described classless society, amateurism was met with some initial resistance (the early days of college sport were full of paid players and pseudostudents), but slowly took hold in the middle class. The morality of privilege, however, had little influence among those who were born to poverty and struggle or were immigrants; sport soon took on the looks of its new practitioners and was no longer cloaked simply in hunting suits and riding boots. To expect sports as they exist today to teach children to play games, become physically healthy, and also build character may be unrealistic. In fact, the results of sport participation fall far short of these expectations. Competitive sports actually have little effect on the development of positive social characteristics. Research shows that competitive team sports are more likely to teach children that "winning is the only thing" and that "the end justifies the means" rather than that hard work, dedication, and self-sacrifice are the true payoffs. There are no convincing data to support the belief that sport prevents juvenile delinquency or reduces drug abuse. There are, however, data that suggest that male athletes develop a view of gender superiority that may explain their higher rates of promiscuity and sexual abuse than those of nonathletes. (There is also ample research showing that athletes are significantly less altruistic than nonathletes.) It is certainly quite clear that in most high schools varsity athletes enjoy higher status than those students who excel in art, music, and even academics. We are quick to condemn the behavior of Mike Tyson, as if we can separate the champion boxer from the street thug. We are disgusted by Latrell Sprewell’s assault on an authority figure, as if P. J. Carlesimo’s long history of bullying players is irrelevant. On the other hand, Arthur Ashe was certainly a hero, but it wasn’t tennis that led him to fight for greater awareness of HIV/AIDS, write A Hard Road to Glory, or protest the racist government in South Africa. Muhammad Ali was certainly a warrior king, but it wasn’t boxing that prompted him to sacrifice his career when he said, "I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." The heroism found in sports is powerful, legitimate, and sometimes even magical, but it is a heroism that is quite different from that of everyday people. When Gatorade urges us to "Be like Mike," are they talking about Michael Jordan the basketball player, the husband and father, or the endorser of a company that has been accused of exploiting child labor in the third world? Are we really supposed to believe Andre Agassi when he says for Canon cameras, "Image is everything"? Earl Woods has said that his son is literally capable of saving the world. Isn’t it enough to simply marvel at Tiger’s heroic golfing ability? Why do we insist on turning this young man’s good manners into heroism? One of the most tragic figures in recent American sport is Pete Rose. The ultimate symbol of hard work and determination overcoming a perceived lack of talent, Rose nonetheless remains the disgraced and fallen hero, clueless as to why he can’t get into baseball’s hall of fame on the basis of his heroic diamond feats alone. Rose’s hubris really knows no limits. He would be well served to heed Crash Davis’s advice: "You have to play this game with fear and arrogance." Rose, like so many of our celebrity athletes, has the arrogance but lacks the fear. Like those celebrities who refer to themselves in the third person, Rose --- the self-proclaimed "Hit King" --- places himself above the game. Also known as "Charlie Hustle," Rose betrayed those who depended on him when, as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, he gambled on baseball. Rose’s greatest "hustle" was trying to convince the public he loved the game more than he loved himself. Rose still does not recognize that heroes must fear letting us down. Roy Hobbs’s home run at the end of The Natural brings us joy and hope, not because he saves the world but because he saves himself. Ray Kinsella eases our pain at the end of Field of Dreams, not because he demonstrates the moral superiority of baseball but because he finally has the chance to tell his father he’s sorry. Perhaps Cal Ripken Jr. is a hero. He certainly is a marvelous baseball player. But to ask him --- or any other athlete --- to be father to the nation is unfair. He has enough of a burden being father to his own children. For us to get anything more than that from him is simply a blessing. Photo credits: Sprewell, NBA Photos. Ripkin and Woods, Tom DiPace.
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