Athletes deserve a shot at redemption too

http://www.craigerscinemacorner.com

Sunday as Tiger Woods threatened to break his win-less streak by hanging around the top of the leader board at Augusta, a strong feeling, almost tangible feeling began to creep around the country.

No, not the feeling of folks pulling for him to win and rock the green coat again - though that was present as well - but rather a feeling of detest and cheers of his failure from those who long ago yelled "unclean!" and swore him off to live his life out beside Judah Ben-Hur's family in the leper caves.

(**Anyone over the age of 25 who hasn't seen Ben-Hur should:
1. Be ashamed and 2. Write on your hand that you immediately must watch it.)

Of course Tiger is not alone when it comes to athletes carrying the "villain" label and being rooted against. Athletes such Mike Vick, Ben Roethlisberger, and most recently a gay-slur shouting Kobe Bryant, are among the ranks of those attempting to pull themselves out of the sports-villain leper cave and rebuild their image.


Fans casting out fallen athletes and even basking in the failures is as commonplace today as a warm beer at Wrigley Field in July, but how long should this go on? How long is too much? At some point we as fans need to stop being so hesitant in affording high profile athletes the same opportunity to change, reinvent, and even redeem themselves that any average person would get.

In regards the the Kobe Bryant situation, Friday morning on ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike NBA commissioner David Stern reminded listeners that athletes are humans and everyone has flaws. A hard point for any honest person to argue.

But doesn't that mean everyone is kind of in the same semi-sinking ship? If this is the case why do fans seem so hesitant to toss athletes a life jacket or even just some arm floaties?

Maybe part of the answer lies in our hypercritical nature towards nose picking.

Everyone picks their nose. Fact. But everyone is also completely and utterly disgusted when they catch someone else digging for gold. Despite having fingers just as dirty, folks act appalled to see someone else partaking in such a filthy practice.
 
Multiple this by about 50,000 and that's the level of disgust the common fan has once the TMZs of the world have pasted a few appalling acts of a popular athlete all over television and the internet. Despite said fan having a few faults of his or her own, seeing the athlete's failure dissected on a national level, right or wrong, sends the shameful meter through the roof.

Of course when this is feed to the public in an open-24-hours buffet-style fashion another issue quickly arises; everyone, regardless of age, can reach the soft-serve knob and completely ruin a dinner of healthy morality. 

With the door open for children to see their "heroes" in less-than-heroic fashion a panic is created among many parents, causing many of them to slam the door on the possibility of cheering on the athlete.

For some this is the simplest solution. Slap the athlete with a "bad" person label and call it a life.

But ESPN's Bill Simmon's offers a different take in his column regarding his son watching Tiger Woods.

Rather than blast Tiger and ban his son from ever sporting the TW logo, Simmons wants his son to understand athletes aren't perfect people and that they have faults too.

He wants his son to learn how to appreciate the greatness of the athlete, while understanding everything the athlete does might not be great, or even good. Heck, sometimes it might be flat out awful, but Simmons doesn't want this to floor his son. He would rather the youngster be able to take it in stride, while still valuing the athletes abilities, while also understanding that everyone falls.

For a lot of folks this is easier said than done.  Separating an athlete's checkered past from on-field accomplishments, the old "hate the sin, love the sinner" act, doesn't come as easy as it sounds. In fact some seem to refuse even considering it.

So let's speak to the super righteous and go Sunday School for a moment.

How many people have ever objected to cheering on David as he takes down Goliath and proceeds to cut off his head?

What?! None???

Isn't this the same dude who watched a lady take a bath on her roof, knocked her up, and in tried a massive cover-up operation, which ended with murdering her husband? Where was TMZ? They should have been all on this!

That's pretty hardcore, yet folks don't sentence David and his highlight reel to a lifetime in the leper cave. Instead they look at his faults as mistakes to learn from and his redemption as a how-to guide for recovery.

What if a similar attitude was taken with athletes?

What if we focused on learning from their mistakes, rather casting them out?

No matter who you are, there must be consequences for our actions. There must be a punishment. But serving a punishment should not forever eliminate the opportunity for a person to change.

Should athletes be held to a higher standard because of their public roles? Yes!

Do some athletes deserved to be punished, criticized, and even mocked at times for their ignorant and irresponsible actions? Yes!


Will every athlete learn from his or her mistakes and change directions? Nope!

But if fans, the media, and even fellow athletes are going to be bold enough to openly rant over the negative, when an athlete does take the steps to fix things let them be equally bold enough to recognize and accept it.