Athletes should stick to the field

Carl E. Littleberry Jr., Reporter

Sports have always been a touchy topic for me; it’s something like talking to a Democrat about politics when you’re a Republican. I have my favorite teams, and my views on soccer and women’s basketball have been known to start mini-verbal wars between the nicest of people.

I understand that defense wins championships in football and that you can’t win in October (which is the month baseball holds its playoffs) without strong pitching and a solid mix of veterans and young players.

I also know that just like everything else in life, except for taxes and death, that you can’t run away from change in sports. With homosexual athletes coming out every few months or with the change in the NFL kicking rules, change can be a good thing.

Change can, however, also lead to mountains of problems and complications for teams, owners and even fans. Consider the added element of social media to sports and how it has changed the entire landscape of how we connect with athletes.

Now instead of having to wait until a story was posted online by a journalist or watching networks such as ESPN to get news on what’s going on with athletes, we can just log onto Twitter and check our feeds for said athletes’ latest tweets.

Yes, being able to know what Floyd Mayweather is doing in his free time seems cool, but that’s where the problem with social media lies.

With the accessibility of these social media sites, basically anyone and everyone can see what you’re doing, and that’s the problem. These athletes are forgetting they are role models for a younger generation of athletes worldwide, and are an example of what type of person a professional athlete is supposed to represent.

Guys like Rob Gronkowski, the tight end for the New England Patriots, periodically posts pictures of himself partying and living a lifestyle that should scare most.

However, because of the warped perception of how an athlete is supposed to behave off the field, people like Gronkowski are presented as model citizens when in fact they are generally the cause for many bad habits young athletes practice today.

We are too involved in these people’s lives when we really know nothing about them. I mean, I don’t personally know Johnny Manziel, a back up quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, so why should I care if he wants to party? Heck, I rarely care when my own friends want me to go out to dinner with them, so why should I be focusing on this guy’s life that has nothing to do with me?

Athletes should just refrain from all social media that doesn’t pertain to either the team or their own humanitarian acts during the season.

You would never catch Michael Jordan tweeting during a Chicago Bulls game, would you?

So just keep it to yourselves, athletes. I don’t care about your lives; I just want to see goals scored in soccer, home runs hit in baseball, and touchdowns in football.

Do your job and stop trying to be media moguls. Leave that to those god-awful Youtubers, and do your talking on your respective field or court.