A group of individuals consider athletes to a positive example for the youth while other claim that their behavior can lead to negative effects be it on the filed or not. While the pints by the latter group may have some truth to them, I believe the people in sports have a stronger beneficial influence in the younger generation.
On the one hand, some people say that the athletes serve as a bad role model for the growing generation. This is mainly because of the fact that some of the sports-men/women can be involved in problematic situations such as use of illegal drugs, intoxicants and violence which could be detrimental for the young people who look up to them. Since the athletes usually have a huge following on social media, this poses a risk of normalizing such actions for a majority of the growing population. Thus, although in some cases members of the sports world could show case a good example, in the long run and bigger scale, it stands as something negative.
On the contrary, majority of people favor the athletes saying that they serve as inspiration to the younger people. They state that they mostly appear as the symbol of hard work, discipline, staying active, chasing your dreams against all odds which is necessary to keep the youth motivated and focused on their goals. As for the scandals that may occur surrounding the athletes, they propose that parents should teach their kids to pick up the positives as negativity is inevitable and exists in every field of life. In addition, the growing generation have the opportunity to potentially be noticed by their favorite athlete nowadays on social media platforms which could be the life changing step for them. It is obvious that the presence of athletes in the life of youth have a wide range of benefits.
To conclude, although young people could be influenced badly by athletes in some categories, I would say that the role of athletes of young individuals has far more benefits.