Sports Opinion: Athletes should be better role models

Recently many professional sports players have gotten into some mischief, which in most people’s eyes aren’t deemed acceptable.

For example, professional superstars Patrick Kane and Ben Roethlisberger had some altercations with assault charges. Kane and his cousin were in a cab in Buffalo, New York before last year’s hockey season started up and assaulted their taxi driver for not having 20 cents worth of change. The taxi driver was punched repetitively in the face and ended up having his glasses broken by the Kane cousins.

Kane pleaded guilty to his charges and was let off with no suspensions, just an apology letter to the 62-year-old taxi driver. In the real world outside of professional sports, if some average Joe committed such a crime, he/she would no doubt be in jail.

Along with the Kane incident, Roethlisberger got charged with sexual assault on a 20-year-old college student in a Georgia nightclub.

This should be unacceptable having superstars getting away with such charges. The crime rate for all superstars in all sports has been snowballing.

Athletic directors everywhere need to crack down on consequences for such actions. Longer suspensions and higher fines and community service.

If the players would talk to students about what happened and how they will get back on track, this would be more inspirational than trying to forget it ever happened. If someone like Roethlisberger came to the high school, he could plausibly make a huge impact on the student body and make the students want to change their lives for the better, not just his.

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