The End of Heroes?

Until recently, Joe Paterno was one of my sports idols: a great field general, a benefactor, a no-compromise academician, a trusted mentor to thousands of young men and women, and the winningest college football coach of all time. Those accolades no longer count for much because of the alleged sexual abuse of young men that took place on his watch as head coach of the Penn State varsity football program. “Joe Pa” had a big hand in the untimely demise of his career, but the unraveling of his legend was helped along by the much-smaller world that we now live in.

Heroes are going to be much harder to come by in the future because events are disseminated worldwide in the blink of an eye, short-circuiting a person’s or an organization’s ability to handle matters internally (or ignore them internally).  There are more safeguards and reporting mechanisms in place to keep people honest now than at any time in history.  Today’s media machine works in concert with human nature to make the publication of a person or group’s transgressions a near certainty. Becoming a hero is still possible, but holding that status has become a bigger challenge.

While television and the Internet make it easier to be a hero, blood tests and the ubiquitous camera’s eye make it harder to get away with cheating. Major League Baseball and professional cycling are two sports which will never be looked at again with the same innocence, and track and field is not that far behind. Athletes are suspended almost daily for infractions involving drug use and/or criminal behavior. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco and Barry Bonds obliterated home run records that had been cherished for decades, but were then scorned and vilified for alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez stands to be baseball’s all-time home run leader by the time he retires, but he has already admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs while playing in the major leagues. Even if his records are allowed to stand, “A-Rod’s” legend will always have the unmistakable taint of steroid use.

Behaviors which were once blithely ignored (such as infidelity) are now red flags on the international moral/ethical blotter. Were President John F. Kennedy in office today, his dalliances would receive more attention and criticism than they did 50-some years ago.  Former President Clinton can attest to that, and so can former Congressman Anthony Wiener and (as of this writing) Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain. Athletes and politicians seem to fall the farthest and the fastest. 

Thanks to the 24-hour news cycle, our world is becoming one huge reality show. People are subject to more scrutiny at all levels, and so far it does not look like human behavior is going to change much as a result. The limelight that Andy Warhol predicted will eventually give everyone 15 minutes of fame is doing just as good a job of giving everyone 15 minutes of infamy.

Fare thee well, heroes!  Fare thee well.