Being an English major, I am afforded the luxury of having courses that are intellectually and personally enriching. There are classes that challenge my paradigm and require me to defend or uphold my viewpoints and, furthermore, my way of seeing the world.

One such class is a senior seminar that is re-examining the role and concept of heroes and heroism. I am grateful to have the course and the professor in my final semester as an undergrad but the one thing that the course itself, the professor and my classmates have compromised is the way I view sports and it’s participants.

I don’t have a great sense of heroism in the realm of sports and I find it appalling how some people are hypocritical when it comes to judging some of the people, and that is basically what they are, with the easiest jobs ever.

I am a Mike Tyson-supporter and will always be unless he does something really bad and then I will probably find some way to forget about it and justify his actions.

Not a hero – Ken Caminitti, a graduate of the Kevin Stevens School of Life, did a stupid thing and he now has to pay for it with the rest of his career.

Not a hero – Florence Griffith Joyner, the greatest American female athlete, had a suspicious results in her finishes, and she was under suspicion of steroid usage. Her quick departure from the sport will forever be laced with controversy.

Nothing that these athletes have done in the their lives is heroic and nothing they have done should be chastised. There are as many people that love Darryl Strawberry as hate him.

The advent of heightened media coverage in every aspect of sports, from game footage to peeks into their private lives, the athlete’s mystique, for me at least, has been lessened and I really don’t care if someone has spent time in jail or shot someone or even beat his wife.

I don’t care because their actions off the field don’t really affect what happens on the playing surfaces.

If Jordan gets a divorce, does that make him a bad guy or less of a basketball player. If I were Juanita, I would have dumped his butt ages ago. He is gambling womanizer that is never home. If he made $40,000 instead of $40 million there wouldn’t be much of a debate. It doesn’t mean a thing in the sports world. He is still a great basketball player.

That is where the discrepancy lies. The line between personal life and professional life is blurred and it is damaging careers. One must be able to separate the two if he or she is going to be able to watch and fully appreciate athletes in any sport. Every sport has “bad guys” and whether one likes it or not, as long as they continue to play well they will be on active rosters and in the spotlight for whatever transgressions they have committed.

Two people that are prime candidates for this type of argument are Allen Iverson and Ruben Rivera.

Iverson doesn’t care what people think about him. Both people should be making the money they deserve for being athletes. Rivera needs a contract and Iverson needs more endorsement deals.

Both aren’t heroes, but because their personal lives are damaging their professional lives, which aren’t up to the status quo or other athletes of their caliber.

Don’t accept sports athletes as heroes.

Nobody is a hero in sports and they never will be because nothing they do puts their life on the line. If Mark McGwire is a hero for the way he acted during the “home run race” of 1998, then so is Barry Bonds. McGwire had to embrace the family of Roger Maris because if he didn’t he would have be ostracized by the sporting community.

It doesn’t make him a hero.

Either nobody is a hero or everyone is a hero, you can’t pick and choose.