Using Athletes to Stem the Tide of Violence

Everyone is trying to make sense out of the nightmare in Littleton, Colo., as the grief has touched the community, the state and the entire nation.

As we grieve, fingers are pointing every which way: parents, hate, groups, guns, teachers, fellow students, TV, movies, music and the Internet. It was reported that the shooters targeted minorities and athletes. I am 53 years old and have been around sports since the day I was born. This was the first time I have ever heard athletes placed in the position of deadly targets.

I have seen male athletes who were cocky and arrogant. I have seen athletes who were mean, violent and anti-social in deviant ways. I have been in high schools and watched some athletes ridicule other students. I have watched male athletes parade around with beautiful cheerleaders as if they had one more trophy.

Since the killings in Littleton, I have received more than 20 requests for media interviews on the meaning of athletes as targets. Have we reached a new low point in how society views athletes? Why do young people hate athletes? What is it about sports that makes people feel alienated from athletes?

I do believe that adults have reached a cynical stage in their perception of athletes. Adults are alienated from professional athletes by the extraordinary money they command; by a perceived lack of loyalty to the hometown team; and by the highly publicized arrests for drugs or violent behavior of some athletes.

Nevertheless, I have hesitated to respond to the media requests because to do so legitimizes such sweeping questions about athletes. This is about two deeply disturbed young boys. They took the cruelest and most irrational path that we have yet seen in our schools while leaving behind such horrible carnage and a profound sense of loss. To me, what they did had nothing to do with attitudes toward athletes and sports across America.

I have been involved in the creation of the nation’s most extensive network of athletes working to prevent violence in our schools. Our Athletes in Service to America (ASA) program has about 80 former student-athletes trained in violence prevention who are working full-time in six cities ASA is, in part, based on our Project TEAMWORK, which has been called “America’s most successful violence prevention program” by public opinion analyst Lou Harris.

These programs work because kids like most of those at Columbine High School have such a high regard for athletes. When Harris asked high school students who they wanted to hear deliver socially relevant messages and who could help them the most with the crises they face, the No. 1 choice, by far, was athletes. Kids give them a platform. If the athletes are trained, they can be of enormous help.

In working with children, our staff frequently observes how mean children can be to each other; how easily they can respond with violence as an answer. It could be a fist or, now, in too many schools, it could be a weapon. According to a national survey, 33% of teenage boys own a gun. When popular students, whether they be athletes, musicians, artists, cheerleaders or student leaders in general, put down kids who seem to operate on the margins, then emotional stress can result for these youth.

Is it common? It is estimated that there are 4 million youths between 9 and 17 with serious emotional problems. Only 25% are getting professional help. We can’t take for granted what the effects of our increasingly uncivil society will be on these young people. Since Littleton, we have too often reread the names of other killing fields previously known as loving communities: Pearl, Miss., West Paducah, Ky., Jonesboro, Ark., Edinboro, Pa., and Springfield, Ore.

The worst nightmare for America is not that any one of these horror stories had to be written. It is that the same number of children are killed every day by guns as died that day in Colorado. Our young people are increasingly alienated. In Littleton, some athletes may have worsened the situation by their behavior. But the problems of our nation’s young people are not about sports or those who play them but about all the hate being leveled and wars being waged by our young against each other.

We are too ready to place sweeping blame in this great nation. We can’t give credence to the irrational shooters and blame all athletes. Instead, let’s use the lessons from this case. People who put down others cause pain, which can intensify emotional problems. We need trained athletes--among a corps of many other trained individuals--who can command the respect of our children to teach them both what good they can do by choosing one path and what pain they can inflict by choosing another.

Littleton has experienced the ultimate pain. But so many children are bleeding each day, both literally and figuratively. It does not matter what the color of their skin is; nor does it matter whether they live in rural, suburban or urban communities. The wound is open and everywhere. We have the opportunity to heal with solutions that can make a real difference. We simply do not have any choice but to try.