Cheering for a GREAT Football Player and BAD Human Being – What is a parent to do?

Sunday late afternoon was the best – a quick Florida “cold” snap, an afternoon free of soccer games, and all of my kids on the couch, watching football together. The three hours of chatting about what the tremendous competition we were watching – as the Cincinnati Bengals outlasted the Kansas City Chiefs to win the AFC Conference Championship and advance to the Super Bowl – was, for me, magical.

Our banter came to a head when the Bengals’ running back, Joe Mixon, eluded the Chief defense for a critical first down to secure field position for a sure thing, game-winning field goal.

Everett, my 8-year-old, was ecstatic. “Yes! Man, that guy’s a beast! I can’t believe the Bengals are gonna win. You want them to win, too, right Dad?”

“I do, but have a tough time rooting for anything he does,” I replied somberly, pointing at Mixon.

“Huh? But he is so good,” Everett shot back with a confused look.

“Well, bud, Mixon punched a girl while he was in college. So, I’m for the underdogs but won’t cheer for him.”

The conversation had now caught the attention of my two older sons – Lynden (14) and Yosef (16) – who collectively added, “We’re for the Bengals, too. Mahomes’ (the Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback) brother and wife are so annoying.”

Sensing my opportunity, I piled on with them, “And don’t even get me going on Tyreek Hill (Kansas City’s star wide receiver)!”

Everett appreciated the comradery of rooting for the eventual winners, but rolled his eyes in my direction, “I’m rooting for the Bengals to win in this FOOTBALL game. That’s it.”

I was caught off-guard by Everett calling us out. Maybe he was right.

What did the off-the-field stuff have to do with anything happening on it?

Should our excitement be quelled by outside factors?

What should we tell our kids about cheering for a team made up of (using whatever definition) sketchy players?

Social traffic is all over the board on this topic – particularly, it seems, if the subject of these past transgression(s) contributing to the negative opinion we hold is playing for our team or an opposing one. Would I look past Joe Mixon or Tyreek Hill if they were star players for my Tampa Buccaneers? (After all, the Bucs notably provided a rich contract to notoriously bad guy, Antonio Brown, earlier this fall.)

But, ignorance is bliss for little kids.

Maybe it should be for adult sports fandom.

In my life, sports (and sports figures) have provided far too many emotional rollercoaster rides – a Saturday loss by my beloved Iowa Hawkeyes can leave me sulking for days. I almost cried tears of joy as the 2016 Chicago Cubs won The World Series after a century of losing.

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As a grown man, I laugh (now) at having such strong reactions as those moments happen. So, maybe Everett’s perspective is the correct one: that what we’re witness is just a game, and the players are simply gifted entertainers who have personal lives that we should not care about – good or bad.

But, wait.

While I appreciate my son giving me pause, the artificial connection of fans to the players that create the teams we cheer for are important. There is civic pride built by these teams and players. Tom Brady strikes me as a good dude, dad, and husband so I eagerly adopted of the Bucs as my new favorite team in my new home.

Frankly, I enjoy the emotions that sports draw out – the hate I witnessed when Michael Jordan’s Bulls challenged the “Bad Boys” of the Detroit Pistons during my high school years, or the vitriol between Tyson and Holyfield during their heavyweight fights.

Don’t those exaggerated, emotional responses mean that I’ve picked a side with conviction and for longer than only today’s game? Investing in a team’s ups and downs has taught me – and might teach my kids – a lot.

So, even in understanding that I shouldn’t care so much about my favorite teams, I am torn about what to tell my kids. Like much of what I experience as my kids age, fandom and parenting are tricky and evaluation criteria by which we are measured is subjective.

For now, I guess, I’ll let Everett reside in the blissful ignorance of cheering for the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl without regard for the checkered background of the guy toting the ball.

I won’t get irritated when my older kids claiming to like (or dislike) an athlete based on their Instagram account.

I will continue to cling to the naïve belief that these players are – by the vast majority – good citizens of their respective communities.

I’ll do this while taking in all of the scandalise, ESPN click bait material about the regrettable discretions of these players.

I’ll do so while screaming “PLAY DEFENSE” while my Hawkeyes give up another three-pointer.

I’ll do all this acknowledging that, in even writing this, I’ve committed even more mental capacity to a fleeting comment my son made to me during a relatively meaningless game than a sane person ever should.

All while bleeding my alma mater’s black and gold.

Go Hawks.