Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm in the midwest, first Illinois and now Wisconsin and I've always liked Terry Bradshaw. Football was fun in the late 60's, 70's, my dad and I watched so many games. He loved Bart Starr, but also Terry, Roger Staubach, the 70's had a great deal of good football. He was a Green Bay fan, didn't care for Chicago teams too much.
I like Terry as an announcer, too. Now I'm in Wisconsin, watching the Pack, but the Steelers have a great history. The current personal stuff, drugs, Favre, Ben, Vick, Tiger Woods for that matter, I try to ignore it and just enjoy the sports. Sometimes I think they think they're bigger than big and rules don't apply. You can debate all this stuff forever, I don't think its right but people love their sports and tend to forgive their athletes for whatever reason.
This is the issue with our society, WHY ARE ATHLETES EVEN LOOKED AT TO BE ROLE MODELS FOR OUR KIDS?!?!?!?!?!?!? A role model is suppose to be a senior member of our families, or a police officer, or a fire fighter not an athlete or an actor. They are what they are and they do what they do and they are good at it, but they shouldn't be looked up to.
The number of athletes that are law abiding citizens and good people outnumber the amount of criminals in professional sports by a good margin. It is just when a pro athlete gets into trouble, we hear about it and hear about it a lot.
I bet you if took the percentage of pro athletes that commit crimes against the ratio of non-pro athletes that commit crimes you would find that pro athletes ratio is a fraction of the other.
So, please do not judge all athletes compared to a select few that ruin it for all others.
The good ones should be looked up to because they worked hard to get where they are and many of them spend a lot of time and money working with charities and within their community.
He never apologized for "raping" a girl!! He apologized for the "unwanted and negative publicity it brought to my family, the Steeler organization, the Rooneys, my teammates and the fans." The league suspended him for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy, not for "raping" someone. Here is a quoted statement from Goodell himself...
"My decision today is not based on a finding that you violated Georgia law, or on a conclusion that differs from that of the local prosecutor," Goodell wrote in his letter. "That said, you are held to a higher standard as an NFL player, and there is nothing about your conduct in Milledgeville that can remotely be described as admirable, responsible, or consistent with either the values of the league or the expectations of our fans."
I do agree with this statement: There has been evidence that Big Ben has gotten an ego that lead him to believe he is invincible and untouchable.
No, I dont believe he necessarily raped her or anyone else but I do believe he may have sexually assaulted her which can be a number of things. This is the second incident that has taken place and many people have reported behavior by him at parties and out drinking that show he had that kind of attitude. The man is 6' 5" and 250 pounds and has a lot of influence and power so a lot of people are going to do what they want him to do whether they want to or not.
I know he was never convicted of a crime but that doesnt mean he didnt do anything wrong. You can commit a wrong without being charged with a crime.
If he didnt do anything wrong, he didnt cause the "unwanted and negative publicity it brought to my family, the Steeler organization, the Rooneys, my teammates and the fans." and he would have fought the claims.
The number of athletes that are law abiding citizens and good people outnumber the amount of criminals in professional sports by a good margin. It is just when a pro athlete gets into trouble, we hear about it and hear about it a lot.
I bet you if took the percentage of pro athletes that commit crimes against the ratio of non-pro athletes that commit crimes you would find that pro athletes ratio is a fraction of the other.
So, please do not judge all athletes compared to a select few that ruin it for all others.
The good ones should be looked up to because they worked hard to get where they are and many of them spend a lot of time and money working with charities and within their community.
I agree with you that there are some athletes that use their celebrity status to do good things in their neighborhood and most athletes do not commit crimes. The ones that are active in their communities deserve to be looked at as role models, but just because someone is an athlete or etc doesn't make them automatically a role model. Realistically someone is either a role model or not. A lot of our so called celebrities aren't good role models nor do they choose to be. Most celebrities now do not make the choice to be a role model, to make it even worse they aren't even given the opportunity to choose whether or not to be a role model. It is like as soon as someone becomes famous they have to be role models and then we as common people get mad at them when they do something wrong and call them bad role models. The ones who choose to be role models have the personality to do the right things and can deal with the pressures of having people watch their every move and have people to look up to them.
To me, the reason the Steelers, the Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Minnesota Vikings have fan bases that transcend their metropolitan areas is because in the era of the 1970s, these five teams pretty much dominated the game while kids who were growing up during that period are now middle-aged. They are now the adults who are buying the merchandise and supporting the product. I don't think the population of Pittsburgh dispersing to other areas of the country and bringing that fanbase is accurate. Detroit has lost more people over the same period of time, but you are not very likely to find a rabid Lions fan in New Mexico. But there are plenty of Steelers fans. Just as the Yankees sustained a winning tradition during the baseball era of the 1950s and early 60s (so to did the St.Louis Cardinals, which have a disproportionately high percentage of fans nationally), with that success came national fan support. At heart, we like to be associated with winners, not losers. In the 1970s, growing up as a New York Giants fan, living in New Jersey, I endured losing season after losing season. Meanwhile my elementary school friends were wearing Steelers jackets, Cowboy winter hats, Dolphins jerseys, Raiders mittens to school. This was back in the era when mail order catalogs began to aggressively market NFL merchandise. Retail outlets, such as Sears, were big into this practice. If you peruse the NFL standings, from say 1971 to 1979, you begin to see how dominant these 5 teams were, and how few other teams sniffed sustained success. Kids in my school were hard pressed to root for the Giant and Jets, who fielded one crappy team after the next. It was a lot easier to be attracted to and identify with some of the characters on those successful teams: Jack Lambert, Ken Stabler, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, Larry Csonka. Someone growing up in the 1970s, watching NFL football, could probably name more players from these teams combined than the other NFL teams. That's just the way it was growing up. I am sure these identities played out in other cities across the NFL during that period of time: Detroit, Kansas City, Atlanta, Boston, etc.
Now people my age, who grew up with those characters, have had children, and many have inherited mom/dad's rooting interests, as the cycle perpetuates forward.
To me, the reason the Steelers, the Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, and to a slightly lesser extent, the Minnesota Vikings have fan bases that transcend their metropolitan areas is because in the era of the 1970s, these five teams pretty much dominated the game while kids who were growing up during that period are now middle-aged. They are now the adults who are buying the merchandise and supporting the product. I don't think the population of Pittsburgh dispersing to other areas of the country and bringing that fanbase is accurate. Detroit has lost more people over the same period of time, but you are not very likely to find a rabid Lions fan in New Mexico. But there are plenty of Steelers fans. Just as the Yankees sustained a winning tradition during the baseball era of the 1950s and early 60s (so to did the St.Louis Cardinals, which have a disproportionately high percentage of fans nationally), with that success came national fan support. At heart, we like to be associated with winners, not losers. In the 1970s, growing up as a New York Giants fan, living in New Jersey, I endured losing season after losing season. Meanwhile my elementary school friends were wearing Steelers jackets, Cowboy winter hats, Dolphins jerseys, Raiders mittens to school. This was back in the era when mail order catalogs began to aggressively market NFL merchandise. Retail outlets, such as Sears, were big into this practice. If you peruse the NFL standings, from say 1971 to 1979, you begin to see how dominant these 5 teams were, and how few other teams sniffed sustained success. Kids in my school were hard pressed to root for the Giant and Jets, who fielded one crappy team after the next. It was a lot easier to be attracted to and identify with some of the characters on those successful teams: Jack Lambert, Ken Stabler, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, Larry Csonka. Someone growing up in the 1970s, watching NFL football, could probably name more players from these teams combined than the other NFL teams. That's just the way it was growing up. I am sure these identities played out in other cities across the NFL during that period of time: Detroit, Kansas City, Atlanta, Boston, etc.
Now people my age, who grew up with those characters, have had children, and many have inherited mom/dad's rooting interests, as the cycle perpetuates forward.
Thank you! Excellent points. I grew up in NJ and the Steeler fans I knew never stepped foot there nor had family there. We were 6,7 years old and saw that the Steelers and Cowboys were the two best teams so we jumped on the bandwagon. I was tempted as well, but I stuck by my Bengals because my father (a Giants fan) coached the Bengals in the towns football league and I was the mascot.
If the Pittsburgh Steelers or Dallas Cowboys never had the success they have had in recent years (well, in the 90's for the Cowboys) the young fanbase of these teams outside of the metropolitan areas wouldn't be as big as it is today.
This is the issue with our society, WHY ARE ATHLETES EVEN LOOKED AT TO BE ROLE MODELS FOR OUR KIDS?!?!?!?!?!?!? A role model is suppose to be a senior member of our families, or a police officer, or a fire fighter not an athlete or an actor. They are what they are and they do what they do and they are good at it, but they shouldn't be looked up to.
I agree...but like it or not, kids look up to their favorite pro athletes, so the players should act accordingly. It comes with the territory of being paid millions to play a game.
No, the Cowboys take the marketing route. The Steelers do it the old-fashioned way, by letting the quality of the product speak for itself.
The quality of their product helps of course, but I don't see why people get so offended that they market well and that winning breeds band wagon fans. You should be proud if your orginization has people like that, as it shows they have been a successful. Not every last steelers fan is as pure as your old-school 3rd generation, through thick and thin fan. Are there tons of fans that are that type? Of course, but having a large contigent of fans is going to mean you have levels of "fandom" all across the spectrum.
And thats not a bad thing.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A role model is suppose to be a senior member of our families, or a police officer, or a fire fighter not an athlete or an actor. They are what they are and they do what they do and they are good at it, but they shouldn't be looked up to.
