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Brandon Phillips is a True Role Model

Bob Whalon Written by Bob Whalon, Monday May 23 2011
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I am so sick of all these professional athletes behaving badly.

It's gotten to the point where I expect every professional athlete to be a complete jerk.  With their long rap sheets, snubbing of the fans, stupid comments and all-around bad behavior, there doesn't seem to be any real role models left.

It's sad that I can rattle of a long list of the bad apples in sports.  Guys like Adam "PacMan" Jones and his numerous run-ins with the law.  Ex-con, turned professional boxer Bernard Hopkins showing himself to be a complete racist by saying that Donovan McNabb isn't "black enough", or that he's an "Uncle Tom" because he was raised in the suburbs by two parents and doesn't get into trouble.  Pick any Major League Baseball player over the past two decades, led by B*rry B*nds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.  Chances are, they were using steroids.  How about a notorious dirtbag like Michael Irvin.  It takes a special kind of scum to menace a couple of hookers in a hotel room with a loaded gun and a dinner plate full of cocaine.  

How about Rae Carruth paying someone to kill his pregnant girlfriend, Kobe Bryant's rape accusation, Tiger Woods being a gold-plated jerk to everyone else on the planet, Jayson Williams shooting a chauffeur, Ben Roethlishberger, Tonya Harding, Mike Tyson, Ryan Leaf, O.J. Simpson?  The list is endless.

One of my favorite examples of a pro athlete being a bad guy is Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.  "If we don't have a season, watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game," Lewis told ESPN reporter Sal Paolantonio this weekend.  If you don't know how Lewis could possibly make that connection, then you obviously forgot about his sordid past.  Lewis and his friends were responsible for the stabbing death of a man at a Super Bowl after-party in 2000.  I guess Lewis is just talking from experience when he talks about evil acts of crime when people can't watch (or in his case, play) football.

I personally have to deal with one of the most despicable professional athletes in sports today on my favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles.  Even before he was convicted of killing dogs, Michael Vick was constantly in trouble with the law.  I didn't think anything could ever make me root against the Eagles, but Vick makes me question my fandom.

Fortunately, in the middle of all of this negativity from professional athletes I have found a ray of hope.  Finally, there is someone who embodies how professional athletes should act towards the fans, instead of treating them with disdain.  That someone is Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips.

Sure there are plenty of athletes who do wonderful things in their community and donate their time and money to countless charities, but Phillips did something that was so out of character for today's professional athletes that it can not go unmentioned.    

On Thursday, May 12, Phillips tweeted (@DatDudeBP) that he would be at a Honda dealership in Monroe, OH on an off day for the Reds.  As a fan of Phillips, 14-year-old Connor Echols saw the tweet and invited the Reds All-Star to his Little League Baseball game.  Echols plays for the Cincinnati Flames U14 select team and had a home game that night near the car dealership.  To his amazement, Phillips responded "where and when".

Phillips got the invitation from Echols around 5:45 and actually didn't know what to do with the rest of his day.  "I said, 'Let me think about this," Phillips said.  "His game was at 6:15 when I got finished eating, it was like 6:10 and I thought, well shoot, I'm going to his game.  I thought, 'Let me go out and support the little man.'  I went out there and he had a great game."

As a matter of fact, Echols finished the game with two doubles and a single to help lead the Flames to a 12-4 victory.  But that wasn't really the story of the game.  That would have been a professional athlete taking the time to go to a Little League game with kids he had never met before, just to show his support.  And even more shocking to someone as close-minded as Bernard Hopkins, Phillips is African American and Echols is a white kid from the suburbs.

Phillips got to the game in the top of the second inning and stayed until the end.  Connor's mother, Brenda Echols, said that Phillips was "bombarded by people.  He must have signed a hundred autographs.  Brandon is a really good guy.  So often all you hear are negative things about star athletes, but this was just the opposite.  It's something none of the kids - or parents - will ever forget."

Phillips even sent out tweets during the game: "Watching my friend CEcholzz go HAM.  So far an RBI single, a double and two runs."  Conner said that Phillips even "Tagged MLB on it and said, 'I'm witnessing the next big thing.'"

"I've always been a fan of his because he makes some sweet plays," Connor said.  "I had a lot of respect for him before, but I've gained even more now.  I don't know of any other major-league player or anyone else like that who would actually do this."  Me either Conner.  Me either.  "Out of all the crazy things he could have done that day, he came to a Little League Baseball game, he said.  "That's just crazy."

While that might be crazy to most professional athletes, it's not crazy for a true role model like Brandon Phillips.

"I had a good time," Phillips said.  "The parents were really into the game.  Everybody had a lot of fun, and it reminded me again of why I play and why I do what I do on the field....and off.  It's about love.  I just love the game."

And I will now love watching Brandon Phillips play baseball and root for him to succeed on the field....and off.


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