psugrowler asked this question on 2/28/2000:
Why are so many pro athletes committing heinous violent crime today?
STB56 gave this response on 3/13/2000:
Athelets are no different than any other person. I feel that one of the reasons athletes are committing violent crimes, is that they are still trying to prove themselves. For some reason our society has this tendency to glorify certain things. Money is one thing, power is another, but all of these come from the fact of trying to make a statement. Nobody wants to think that they are nothing or they are meaningless. This attitude starts problems. Instead of being happy with what they have, they feel like they were nothing before and now they are this big time whatever, athlete, actor, anyone in the public spotlight or in a place of power. People also treat people in the public spotlight, or in a position of power differently. They treat them like they are important. So they start to like this and they start to get a big head because of the way everyone treats them. Not all athelete does this just as not all people do this but some do. Once this feeling of being important or feeling of power is threatened they feel they have no other choice but to react violently, in order to keep what they have had in place. So this leads to an issue of respect just as it did in the street corner, or the bar or wherever. These people think they will less of a person if someone gets away with doing things to them. Another reason may be that they don't know how to channel their anger properly, an example of this would be if OJ really is the killer of nicole and ron. He probably did not know how to channel his anger. He could have thought how dare they do this to me the rage built up and he didn't know what to do so he just unleashed it, but then the issue comes up of respect, he could have said she isn't going to get away with doing that with me, and the power issue. Violence in most instances is seen as a reaction to a percieved threat. If this is real or imaginary it makes no difference, the threat to that individual is real so they are going to treat it as such, and this includes extreme violence. Fight or Flight my friend, and some people just can not distinguish between real threats and percieved ones, even if it is only to your ego.
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