A lot of times athletes are interviewed and when asked about their success, they immediately give God all the glory. It has become a sort of cliché. It is these types of quotes that attract large audiences and give religious fans their own favorite athletes. The religion in sports is in line with the purpose of “Athletes in Action.” This sports organization was started to use sport’s popular platform as a tool to evangelize and spread the word of God.
“I watched the championship hockey game for the 2010 olympics. It was a great game. After the game ended, the media interviewed lots of athletes that participated, and not once, did I hear an athlete give God thanks,” said Ken Boesch, Upper School History Teacher. “I remember when Kareem Abdul Jabbar broke the scoring record, and when he was interviewed, he thanked Allah because he is a Muslim.”
Whether they know it or not, the world’s biggest athletes are the role models for children and adults. A lot of people are constantly studying their favorite athlete. They find out their favorite color, favorite foods, favorite music, and can give a brief background of their life. Get a hold of a teenagers laptop or cell phone, and some of them will have a sports star saved as the screen saver. Billboards of these public figures are present everywhere. It is hard to ignore top professional athletes. But time after time again these athletes continue to live their lives as if they are the average citizen.
So many people shape their lives around whatever athletes do. Fans see headlines like “Kobe Bryant Gets Caught Cheating on His Wife,” “Tiger Wood’s High Affair Count,” “Michael Phelps Caught With Marijuana” or “Mark McGuire Admits to Steroid Use.” Society considers professional athletes higher class, but there are middle class citizens who are classier than those sports gods. Unfortunately, they are not in the public eye, which means the average teen will overlook them. Once an athlete steps into a spotlight, they cannot do the same things an average person does.
Those in need of positive guidance look to professional athletes and tend to turn to the worst possible individual to follow. Today, sports conversations amongst the different communities are not about Kurt Warner praying before a game, but instead how cool Michael Vick is for being involved in dog fighting. Fans do not focus heavily on “NBA Cares” commercials, in which they show its work in the community; they are drawn to the recap of a NBA fight in which one of their favorite players was involved. Now, he or she gets more points on the “cool” scale.
According to AIA, “In most cultures the value system highly esteems the performance of the athlete and gives him or her a national platform of influence.
The sports platform is being used as a negative media scapegoat. There are fewer stories on professional athletes doing the right thing, and more attention on issues that do not inspire a corrupt world. According to CNN report 80% to 90% of professional athletes cheat on their spouse. When researching some of the rhetoric of top performers, one will find some of the most ignorant quotes: Some Asian fans angered Jason Kid, professional basketball player, during a game and he responded by saying, “I will shot all you Asians…Do you remember the Vietname War? I’ll kill y’all just like that.” Later, he was fined $15,000 by the NBA. It does not help that media likes to use issues like scandals, murders, and adulteries as one of its marketing tools. One way to change this set back is to build up a greater nation that will look past all of the immorality and mistakes of competitors who are in this popularity contest. Sport’s role models are blamed, but they were not asked to be a 12 year olds “Superman.” The people kids need to follow are the ones that truly care about seeing a nation rise up. Rising up involves viewers stopping themselves from buying into the garbage that the media draws attention too.
Fans from everywhere must begin to evaluate themselves. Frankly, Michael Jordan cannot truly help anyone fix their problems, Muhammad Ali cannot be a father figure for a lonely adolescent, and Manny Ramirez cannot comfort a widow that just lost her husband of thirteen years. Athletes cannot give people a deep inspiration that can transform them within.
AIA cannot change individual athletes hearts, but it can find leaders that are willing to direct fans towards what they need rather than what they want. This working progress is much more than just an organization; it’s a movement. The movement includes all of God’s people living. for something bigger than themselves: The Lord Jesus Christ.
Like most organizations, “Athletes in Action” started small, but now is a global association. Though there are over 6,000 spoken languages, there is one language that everyone understands. That language is sports. In every country, people play different sports whether they are indoor or outdoor. Sports heroes emerge, and they become a role model for certain people. This helps the goal of AIA because they have their public figure, but then it is a matter of finding the heroes that have chosen to live for Christ.