I originally thought this soliloquy was going to be about the gender-based imbalance of consequences in the wake of the Hope Solo and Ryan Lochte post-Rio spectacles. But I now realize that these stories, and so many others, transcend gender. This is about our collective expectations of our athletic heroes. And what we are willing to accept from them. And ourselves.
Sure, there is a part of me with lingering feelings of inequity that a female athlete was fired from her job for saying things in a post-match presser that our male stars say pretty regularly. And, dare I say, are often given cultural cred for doing so. (Atta boy, puff your chest, be strong in defeat, don’t let them think they got you). The next stop for the male athlete in this saga (in parallel to a recently levied temporary suspension from USA Swimming) — an athlete who most certainly displayed excruciatingly poor judgment at best — is a national television powerhouse show operated by the Walt Disney Co. Is it our shared sense that, “Well, boys will be boys and sometimes things just get a little out of control. What can you do?”
Ah, what can we do? More on that later.
Nonetheless, these stories continue. Of athletes who are idolized and celebrated by many. Of athletes who, rightly or wrongly, are entrusted with the weight of public expectations of leadership, sportsmanship and greatness. Of athletes who let us down. Yes, the number of athletes who live up to and even surpass our collective hopes far exceed those who do not. But there are sociocultural insights and lessons to be learned from those who disappoint.
I am fully cognizant of the notion that the royal “we” can be blamed, in part, for building our athletic heroes up to be something more than they are or even can be. That we thrust upon them a set of standards that we are not willing to hold ourselves to in daily life. And those of us working in sports organizations are quite often active contributors to the myth-building and idol-worship that helps to set up a sometimes unsustainable façade.
But the real point here is, How do we respond to the fall of those we helped to co-create? What do we expect of them in failure? And what is our role in telling our idols that certain behaviors are simply unacceptable and are not going to be rewarded?
We can begin by refusing to tune in to the (admittedly interesting in a rubber-necky kind of way) train wreck that is Lochte ballroom dancing on prime-time television. We can stop obsessing over social media posts that perpetuate poor sportsmanship yet still reach and influence our kids. We can stop supporting companies who stand by athletes whose actions are egregiously inappropriate. And dare I say, we can, via our sought-after eyeballs, digital stickiness and consumer wallets, stop supporting sports organizations that fail to stand up for ethical behavioral standards in their sports.
Hypocrisy abounds. Penalties are unbalanced. Leaders wield considerable power. What we can control is our shared acceptance, or otherwise, of conduct unbecoming of heroes. We will have the sports landscape that we expect, deserve and fight for.
I embrace the fact that sport is commerce and that we live and work in a market-driven economy. With that, though, comes responsibility for both sellers and buyers to use the power they each have in a way that advances the greater good holistically; not just to make a buck because you can, but to lead, shape and affirm the best of what sport and our athletic heroes can do to move us all forward.
Whitney Wagoner (wrw@uoregon.edu) is director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.
