Are AFL Players Role Models?
Posted on 19 July 2010 by Jermayn
Watching the 7pm Project at the moment (waiting for Maser Chef) and they are arguing the age old argument about are AFL footballers role models?
What do you think?
Personally what gets me in this argument that no one seems to have raised is what about the parents? Surely they are our role models. Maybe the parents should stop passing the buck on their kids role model and step up to the plate and be the role model.
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Meet Jermayn
Web designer by trade and joint owner and creator of Kick2Kick.
Played football for Chapman Valley football club for ~10 injured years up in Geraldton & had the pleasure of playing in their Grand Final win in 2001. Injuries and other commitments caused Jermayn to give up playing but not his love for the great game.
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:23 pm
????
No-one suggests that AFL players are the ONLY role models. There are many bigger and more important questions about AFL players’ status as role models. There are also many, many more players who ARE good role models than those who fall short.
AussieRulesBlog´s last [type]: Bowen absence raises questions
July 24th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
So what are the questions??
I do not understand why they are looked at as role models. I do not think much of Judd but I tend to agree that he should just be remembered as a good player & not a role model!
Being a role model is a desicion made by the person & should never be something taken lightly or thrusted on them
July 25th, 2010 at 11:32 am
@Jermayn,
Did you, as a kid or as a teenager, want to emulate your heroes in football? If you didn’t, I suspect you’re a rarity. If you did, then they were role models for you. And, whether you or your heroes liked it, your life decisions at an impressionable age were probably influenced to some degree by the decisions your heroes made and how they lived their public lives. Whether you know your heroes personally, and whether they know of your looking up to them, doesn’t really affect how much they may influence you.
In the past, Gary Ablett Snr, had the mantle of role model thrust upon him simply through fans’ adulation of him. Of course, he was unprepared, by the club and by natural inclination, to fulfil the expectations thus placed upon him. Gary Ablett Jnr, by contrast, through AFL and club training, has been aware from the moment he was chosen as a father-son pick that those expectations would be heaped onto him. Unlike his brother Nathan, Gary has been able to shoulder the responsibility. Nathan took the best course open to him and vacated the public arena. It remains to be seen whether a few more years maturity gives him the wherewithall to manage himself in that scenario.
My own chief role model has been a teacher from high school who I maintain contact with some forty years later.
The questions? How can we identify, as early as possible, those young players who are fitted by inclination to take on the responsibility of being role models? How can we mitigate the negative effect of those few who are extraordinary players who cannot or will not accept the burden? Or should we leave it alone and let nature take its course?
For you, if you don’t think much of Judd, then you’re unlikely to model your behaviour or attitudes on him, but that doesn’t mean that others can’t or won’t aspire to use him as a model for their own journey.
There are, of course, other dimensions to this question. Ben Cousins, for instance, is a superb role model as far as football goes. Any youngster who applies himself to the sport as Cousins has done could not conceivably be worse off for the effort. But would you model the rest of your life on Ben’s? Of course not.
aussierulesblog´s last [type]: misInterpretation rules
August 13th, 2010 at 10:20 am
At school we have been debating and i think the reason they may act like losers may be because of the crowd they are are in or the way they were brought up. We all make mistakes. Part of us says that they are role models and half of us dont. We choose who we look up to!