9781422283073

parents and clergy. Whether they like it or not, they are among the world’s biggest role models and heroes. With that standing comes high expectations for behav- ior. And most athletes live up to those expectations. For ex- ample, studies have shown that thousands of men abuse or kill their partners each year. Among the nearly 2,000 NFL players in a given year, only a

tiny fraction shows up in these stats. However, after the media devotes special sections and thousands of pages of news coverage to that tiny fraction, every NFL player is tarred with the same brush. The sta- tistically rare examples of NFL players get more at- tention than the millions of average citizens abusing cocaine and heroin every day. Is that fair to the play- ers? Or should they be held, somehow, to a higher standard?

The numbers say that NFL players are about average in terms of crime, but the general feeling is that they are not living up to their jobs as role models.

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