Positive Role Models On and Off the Field

The sports world is a place where anything is possible, on the field and off. Sports offer the ability for fans worldwide to come together and rally around the players on the field. With all the fame and popularity that comes with being a professional sports player and making millions of dollars per year come many challenges. There are many examples in the sports world of players being great athletes on the field and standup citizens off the field. It’s very rare to find someone who is a phenomenal athlete and a good role model and person in the real world. It’s honestly sad that it’s rare to find examples of these kinds of athletes, but we will examine this one percent of athletes in the sports world.

There are tons of people who are great athletes but lack certain attributes to be good people off the field, but in this case, these three athletes are the exception to this rule. This list consists of Sadio Mane who is currently a forward for Bayern Munich, Serena Williams who is a world-renowned female tennis player, and Steph Curry, who is one of the best point guards of all time in the NBA. These athletes all have impeccable reputations in their sports and also have spotless reputations off the field as well. 

Sadio Mane was born in Bambali, which is a small town in the Sedhiou District of Senegal. Mane became a professional soccer player later than most athletes do because he was banned from playing by his father in order to focus more on religion. His father tragically passed away when Mane was seven years old. After that, his family gave him the green light to live out his soccer dreams. His career started when he got recruited by the Generation Foot Youth Academy. After playing a couple of seasons with them, he was picked up by Mentz, and after even more success he made it big by being picked up by RB Salzburg. It was at RB Salzburg where Mane began to make a name for himself, and he went on to record 20 goals and 11 assists early in his time with the club. His great form in Austria picked up the attention of the Premier League, which is the most famous league in the soccer world. He went on to become a record signing by Southampton (a premier league team) by signing at the age of 22 for 11.8 million pounds. Mane recorded two very impressive seasons with Southampton, which made Liverpool inclined to spend big money on him. He had a long and successful career with Liverpool, and eventually moved on to other things and transferred to Bayern Munich. Besides his exceptional career on the pitch, he also did a lot of good off the pitch as well. Sadio Mane has won France Football’s inaugural Socrates Award, in recognition of his charity work in Senegal. He built multiple hospitals, funded many schools, and provided support for many families in his home country, Senegal, during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Mane also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Senegal government, along with giving $250,000 to a secondary school because he so deeply believed in education. Through Sadio Mane, his home village was able to get some of the support that they needed to get through the pandemic, along with the medical help that is required from living in that region of the world. He is considered a hero in the country of Senegal, especially in his village. Sadio Mane is the perfect example of what a good person on and off the field looks like. 

The next person on my list is Serena Williams, one of the greatest female tennis players in the history of the sport. Williams grew up in Compton, California. Her father, Richard Williams, was a sharecropper from Louisiana, who was determined to see Serena and her sister Venus succeed in life. He drove Serena and Venus to play tennis and instructed them by having them read books and watch films from the greats that had played the game. Serena began practicing the sport at the age of three on a court near her home. Williams became a professional tennis player in 1995 and won the French Open, the US Open, and the Wimbledon in 2002, defeating her sister Venus in the finals of each of those tournaments. She won her first Austria Open in 2003, making her only one of six women in the “Open era” to complete a Career Grand Slam. In 2008, she teamed up with her sister in the doubles aspect of the game to win gold in doubles at the Beijing Olympics. Williams is also the only tennis player in history to accomplish a Career Golden Slam in singles and doubles. Williams excels on the court in every aspect, but what she does off the court is amazing as well. Williams supports over thirteen charities and over thirty causes. Some of the charities that Williams supports and donates millions to every year are UNICEF, Build African Schools, Elton John AIDS Foundation, and the Serena Williams Fund. Some of her most notable work has been with UNICEF, which is a humanitarian aid organization that is responsible for helping children gain access to education, food, and other resources. Serena donated close to a million dollars to this great cause, along with being the ambassador for the building schools in African countries initiative, which with her help has been a great success. Serena has shown through her great wealth that she amassed through her tennis career, one of her greatest joys is giving her money away to great donations. Serena Williams is known for all of her awards and accomplishments, but she is also known as a great samaritan in society.

The final athlete on this list is Steph Curry, who is a four-time NBA champion and is currently the point guard for the Golden State Warriors. Wardell Stephen Curry was born in 1988, in the state of Ohio. Curry’s father was an NBA player for the Charlotte Hornets and his mother was an educator. Coming out of high school, Curry was not a very promising basketball player; he was a three-star recruit and ended up committing to Davidson College in North Carolina. At Davidson, he was named twice as Southern Conference Player of the Year and made two All-American teams. He finally started to make a name for himself when he single-handedly led Davidson to a deep run in March Madness. Due to this great run, and a phenomenal college basketball career, he was drafted by the Warriors in the 2009 NBA draft. Curry has spent every moment in the NBA with the Warriors and cemented his legacy in the NBA as the greatest shooter in NBA history. In addition to all of his rings and accomplishments on the court, Curry has done some great things off the court as well. Curry raised over $1 million for charities for Animal Rescue Foundation, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, which he founded. Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation was founded by Curry and his wife Ayesha in 2019 to pave the future of children that enroll in this foundation. Curry also distributed over 15 million meals throughout Oakland California. Before Curry began giving millions of dollars to the city of Oakland, it was severely struggling. He took rebuilding Oakland as a city as a personal project of his and he thought about Oakland and the people in it as part of his family and wanted to help in any way possible. He has done this by creating various organizations and donating to even more. Curry is well-known for all of the good work he has done in the state of California, and as long as he has the funds to do it Curry will keep giving back to his community.

It’s very sad how few athletes are as charitable with their time and money and are good people over, but there are a few out there as showcased. These athletes all have outstanding records on and off the field/court, and they all excel in the sport they pursue; they are also leaders in their communities. These types of athletes are the type of people we should be looking up to as role models.

By Avner Belsky