Ah, pro sports…where most everyone’s a fan and those elite stars make obscene amounts of money. (Aaron Rogers makes—made?—1.6 million dollars per game, matching Tom Brady’s pay). That means “stars,” often becoming idols for our young people, can easily give in to their latent narcissistic personalities and morph into someone as bad as that “f&^%ing moron.” The rich owners and coaches of the pro teams are usually self-centered bastards too, card-carrying members of the club of fascist plutocrats. Even college programs make institutions and coaches fabulously rich as alumni demand winners and everyone ignores the purpose of higher education. (Many college athletes are seduced by the prospect of untold riches and never graduate!)
Of the seven deadly sins, modern athletics is fertile terrain for four of them—pride, greed, wrath, and envy. Lust, gluttony, and sloth affect athletics the least. The last two are controlled by the athletes’ need for conditioning to earn those millions (Brady, the RAT—that’s “richest of all time”—leads the pack only because his conditioning is extreme). Lust often morphs into domestic violence against an original partner, or a change of partners (Brady’s swapping a Hollywood actress for a runway model is an example), but sports relationships are often stable (certainly more than Hollywood’s).
The flip side of the seven deadly sins can compensate somewhat. Some athletes show a lot of civic concern, especially those who realize how lucky they are to get beyond lives of squalor and violence; they aid their families and their communities. (LeBron James is a much better role model in this sense than either Brady or Rogers.) Some treat their spouses well and have a great family life of love and caring too. (Kobe Bryant, except for a few slip-ups, seems a good representative of that.) I don’t have the stats to back it up, but I opine that the poorer the start, the better the famous athlete handles his fame. Privileged beginnings, especially those athletes who already were members of the plutocracy by birth, are too often selfish asses. “Noblesse oblige” was never part of their vocabulary, and it never will be.
It won’t happen—there are too many who are sports fanatics, not just redneck Trumpers—but we need to take money out of sports, pro and college, just as much as we need to do so out of politics. Our kids don’t need any more “role models” like Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady.