Entitlement is a tricky thing

Entitlement Is A Tricky Thing

Now that Ben Roethlisberger has been suspended for six games and all the hoopla has died down I think there is a disturbing trend that has been brought to light.

It seems like ages ago but it was less than a year ago that Steve Mcnair was killed in a murder, suicide.

At first you might think these cases are unrelated but there is one common fact that both these cases share.

Athletes use their celebrity to take advantage of women.

It almost seems as if it is the American way.

The problem in our culture and society is that we worship athletes and praise them like they are gods and pay them like kings. So it is no surprise that when they step off the playing field they feel they have the same entitlement.

In Big Ben’s case, the entitlement to thinking that he could (according to police reports) expose himself to a female and follow her into a bathroom and then proceed to have sex with her after she says no.

Now I have only skimmed about 20 pages of the 572 page report, but the most disturbing thing that I noticed was the fact that Roethlisberger kept downplaying the woman’s request to stop by saying ‘It’s Ok.’ It’s almost as if he were saying I’m Big Ben, 2 time Superbowl quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, you can’t possibly not want to be with me.

In the case of Steve Mcnair his entitlement was thinking that he could use a 20 year old woman, Sahel Kazemi as a disposable mistress. Mcnair wined and dined Kazemi, bought her a car, and took her on nice vacations. However, while Kazemi was thinking that these things meant she was special she was outraged to find out Mcnair had other mistresses and was planning to leave her soon. In the end Mcnair thought he could just dispose of her when he wanted, after all he was Steve Mcnair, one the best quarterbacks of his era.

Unfortunately, for Mcnair he learned too late about the power of a woman’s scorn and it cost him life. All because he thought he was entitled to have a disposable mistress.

Now I am not writing this entry to bring up old wounds but rather to make a point that cases like Big Ben’s and Mcnair’s are not ever going away.

Let me also say that not all athletes behave this way but there a lot more than you think that do.

I just want to make the point that in the end celebrity trumps all. Because when Big Ben hits the field in mid October, the cheers will be much louder than the boos and when he throws the game winning td pass the whole stadium will stand and cheer.

They will feel entitled to.