For the past couple of days I have sat and listened to and read everything about the whole Scotty Nygun thing and its as my Grandma used to say .. got me to pondering....
It seems to me that there is a very Dark side to having or being a role model or hero... be it pro athlete, politician, musician or actor...
To be a role model you must give up any right to human error, you must never ever make a mistake, say the wrong thing, have a fight with your spouse, act stupid , over indulge, make too much money or buy/wear the wrong kind of clothes or haircut. Pretty heavy price to pay in my opinion.
To have a role model means you must give up any compassion or understanding for failure, you must pattern your behavior on your role model/hero and there by hold them responsible for any failure of your own. You must give up the responsibility and right of teaching your children right from wrong. And most importantly you must crucify them if they dare to stumble or fall in any way and completely disregard any past good your role model/ hero has done. Also a pretty heavy price to pay.
I for one would much rather choose a role model/ hero that HAS stumbled and fell a time or two, how you handle failure is surely as important as how you handle triumph..
I would rather put my trust and hope into someone that has failed or fallen and picked themselves up and learned from it, than someone who seems to be perfect.
There are some role models/heroes that most definitely deserve all the scorn and disgust we have.. Michael Vick comes to mind... to purposely harm a living thing in so cruel a manner is deserving of scorn and disgust. Mike Tyson also comes to mind, along with several others.
The scorn and disgust being heaped on Scotty far out weighs the " crime"... no one takes into account that he had been playing for 5 straight days, was exhausted..under a lot of pressure and consumed too much beer...If you had a neighbor or co worker that you have known for years and was a good guy... sometimes he gets a little loud when he's buzzed, he has a bad day gets lit and makes an ass of him self.. would you all be as unforgiving? I think not..
My two cents.... OK maybe its a bucks worth !
mama
© Copyright 2008
13 comments
Everyone does mess up. The difference between me and a celebrity messing up is often they don't pay the same consequence because of who they are. I am pretty confident that if a unknown had behaved in that manner the rules would of been enforced and that player would be gone. This was a sensitive tournament and long time pros like Scotty should of stepped up instead of stepping down. He ruined the event, he ruined the coverage and possibly damaged the reputation of the game. But hey, it's okay baby! Scotty can do anything he wants baby!
I havent seen it yet but I think we get ESPN coverage this week...Sunday night I think so I will return and have a nother read then.
Good blog
Iceman
Good blog, everyone has an opinion which leads me back to JJ Liu.
I'm still waiting on her apology to J Lo.....
I was going to post a blog that had a similar point to this one, but mine was more specific to poker players. I watched the video of Scotty making an ass of himself on YouTube, and then I watched videos with Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow and Shahram Sheikhan also conducting themselves less than respectably during poker contests. What I started to think about is that these people are, essentially, gamblers, and they are not necessarily trying to be role models, they are trying to make money. Granted they have wide public exposure, and the public sort of expects them to understand that their actions can influence those watching them, but many of these guys have been playing poker longer than it has been the media phenomenon it has become in the last ten years.
Unlike other professional sports, where it should be understood going into it that kids watch them and idolize the athletes, so they should conduct themselves responsibly and respectably, poker players play an adult game that children are not allowed to compete in, in most cases. There are no age restrictions on baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc., but casinos have age restrictions, and so do online poker sites, if I am not mistaken. It takes responsibility and maturity to choose to risk one's own money when gambling, and this is at least one reason why children are not allowed to do it at an organized level.
Poker is a game of lying (bluffing), stealing, and doing everything you can to try to take money from your opponent and put it into your own pocket. I love poker, but sometimes I wonder if it is healthy for my moral compass. I don't let these strategies carry over into other areas of my life, but maybe I would be a better poker player if I did. Who knows? And many poker players do conduct themselves with respect and grace most or all of the time. I do not think it is wrong to idolize poker players, but we have to remember that these are basically normal people who happen to excel at a particular game of chance, for various reasons. It is hard to compare poker players to other professional athletes, when discussing role models, because there are many differences between the two genres of competition. But as Paganmama said, a person who has flaws, and makes mistakes, but is able to take responsibility for their mistakes is, in my opinion, a much better role model than one who is too arrogant to acknowledge their own part in the mistakes that they make. These are my $0.02, and I'll probably lose them at the poker tables.
Not to many people are paying much attention to the actions of the drunken pro's on the side line that were encouraging Scotty.
Not to many people are paying attention to the WSOP officials that disregarded their own rules and refused to enforce them.
There are a lot of people that have everything to gain and nothing to lose by following those simple rule, but chose to ignore them anyway.
The losers at this years WSOP are the poker players around the world that was given a black eye by these so called professionals.
Every internet drunk in the world will be trying to imulate these pro's now and will reply to those following the sites rules to just turn off chat if you don't like us violating the rules laid down by the sites. In other words, they want the rule abiding players to give up their rights to use chat so the violators can continue to violate the rules.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT--------------SCOTTY WAS ALSO ATTACKED FIRST--YOU ONLY SAW A LITTLE OF WHAT HAPPENED ON TV---SCOTTY IS ALWAYS FRIENDLY TO YOU TAKING PICTURES WITH EVERYONE AND SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS FOR ANYONE.............
AND REMEMBER HE SAID HE WAS SORRY FOR DISAPPOINTING SOME FOLKS.............HIMSELF INCLUDED.
The real villan in this whole mess is the Poker Tournament Director assigned to this tournament ! If that person had stepped up and done their job, none of this would be topic for disscussion !
.....play on ....Tc......
well two......
ESPN & RATINGS!!!!
This is a truely unfortunate insident. I think that what is truely so shocking about this situation is the way we used to Scotty . A sweet and cordial poker ambasidor. But I still got love for you Scotty. To err is human.