A NOT-SO-NEUTRAL CORNER by Ciro Scotti

WHO SAYS PRO ATHLETES HAVE TO BE ROLE MODELS?

If a visitor from Mars were to look down on America some Sunday afternoon in autumn, what would he see? Among other things, hundreds of thousands of large men (and women) watching even larger men engage in ritualistic and repeated attempts to maim one another. Welcome, little green man, to the NFL.

Were the curious alien to probe further, he would discover that these warriors are supposed to do more than crush bones and cause concussions as one team advances and the other defends its territory. They're also supposed to be nice guys. Sweethearts and role models who leave all that stuff on the field after they ice down their knees and head home for the night to have a chocolate sundae and go beddy-bye.

Well, unless you just fell off a Thanksgiving turnip truck, you won't be shocked to learn that those mountains of mayhem who play pro football aren't all choirboys. You might, however, be chagrined to discover that a lot of them are a good deal worse than you imagined.

In a new book, Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL, authors Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger examined the records of 509 of the approximately 1,590 players who took part in the 1996-97 pro football season. Of that 509 (the number of players for which the authors felt they had sufficient data), they claim, 109 (21%) had been formally charged with a serious crime.

"NFL teams are recruiting a new breed of criminal players, the likes of which should disturb all NFL fans," write Benedict and Yaeger. "Gone are the good old days of NFL recruits having rap sheets detailing merely drunken brawls and vandalism. In are the days of lethal violence, rape, armed robbery, home invasion, kidnapping, and drug dealing."

Yeager and Benedict are no doubt correct: The NFL is full of brutal beasts and, as a recent issue of Sports Illustrated pointed out, dirty players. Vikings cornerback Corey Fuller and Dallas tackle Erik Williams made it onto both the Pros and Cons list of players with what the book calls a "criminal history" and the SI list of the NFL's Dirty Dozen.

Still, you can't demand a gladiatorial spectacle and also ask the gladiators to be tofu-eating cat-lovers. Most of these guys went to college, learned a trade, and are practicing it to the best of their ability. That trade happens to be organized violence, and if it spills over into their personal life, then they should pay the price like everyone else. But should they be held to a higher standard than, say, your average corporate zombie just because they're professional athletes?

"Of course," says a voice whiney with family values, "the kids look up to them. They have an honored and well-rewarded place in society, and they should set good examples." Well, rock singers are adored and emulated, but no one says they should be banned from music if they get caught shooting drugs or trashing hotel rooms. Same with movie and TV stars (O.K., so they did come down hard on Pee Wee Herman). And forget about politicians. They clearly can behave any way they please. So why should the bar for professional athletes be set higher than for anyone else?

The pros are just people whose business happens to be baseball or basketball or football. They're not like you and me because they get paid enormous salaries, and their average game life, if they play football, is about five years. But they are like you and me in that they get up everyday and go to work (for as long as the season lasts anyway). And if they step out of line, they ought to do their time. But beyond that, they don't owe anybody diddley.

Scotti, BW senior editor for government and sports business, often offers his views on Tuesdays for BW Online