Plato quotes Socrates as saying at his trial “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Perhaps something that John Terry and Tiger Woods might not readily agree with this weekend. I can’t however help but be impressed this week, to see that this is a sentiment that the Nike marketing department and Tiger Woods himself have chosen to take ownership of with their latest ad campaign: Tiger’s late father Earl eerily challenging him from beyond the grave about what the past five months of press revelations about his private life have taught him about himself. Tiger’s speechless and pensive response indicating that whether this weekend, over the next five months or over the next five years he is going to let his sport do the talking and that he’s a better person for having been challenged and for what the past five months have enabled him to learn.

I was interested but unsurprised to see (via @arnoldbeekes) that not everyone agrees with me on this matter. Alan Webber recently blogging about how little value he sees or places in role models that he doesn’t know and don’t know him – his accusation being that societally we’ve confused celebrity with role model and that our real role models are, and according to Webber, should be our parents and people we actually know. Webber clearly influenced by Tina Turner in the assertion that we don’t need another hero and clearly better endowed with parental role models than John Terry.

I beg to differ; we need heroes (and heroines) beyond our immediate context, family or social groups. For the very manner in which they challenge us either with their sporting, creative or charitable endeavours or, as with Tiger Woods, their ability to withstand scrutiny that I know most of would struggle to cope with. We also need heroes and heroines who make mistakes, so that we, with them can learn from their experiences without having to repeat their mistakes ourselves.

It is interesting that the very ‘crimes’ that it is recorded Socrates was tried for in Ancient Greece are those that many including Alan Webber and Augusta Masters Chief Billy Payne seem concerned that Tiger Woods and countless other sports people before him are guilty of – namely ‘immorality’ and ‘corrupting the youth’. It assumes that the youth are pretty passive and helpless doesn’t it? Socrates was fond of challenging the social conventions and power structures of his time, largely by publicly questioning himself and others about their role within society. Tiger Woods is likewise a role model for his ability to challenge himself and to face up to the responsibilities and realities that then throws up whether on the golf course or off it. Not one us is ever perfect and as Tina says “…I wonder when we are ever going to change…”. John Terry and Tiger Woods recent off field behaviour has as much to teach kids as their behaviour on it. This is a challenging and unpredictable reality much like sport in general and life itself.

I’ve been challenging myself recently not only in exploring Greek History and philosophy but in light of the recent Tiger, John Terry, Michael Phelps scandals thinking how in my role as Young Ambassador for the Youth Olympic Games I might better support the role of young sports people in society and equip and educate young athletes with the tools not only to be able to withstand the pressure and scrutiny public sports figures face but also with the tools for life in general and the reflective capability that life demands of us all if we wish to grow and better ourselves.

Irrespective of this complex question and just as with the Games at Olympia in the time of Socrates and Plato, I don’t think that the off field antics of a few high profile individuals should diminish or distract from the opportunity that competitive sports provide all of us, whether as participants, officials or spectators, to challenge and ask questions of ourselves. Competitive sports enable us to embody the values of excellence and competitive sports people enable us to associate ourselves with, aspire towards and emulate excellence ourselves. By being excellent, they make it possible for us to be excellent as well, in whatever way we might choose. In doing so they also give us the opportunities to make new friendships and to acquire and demand the respect of ourselves and others around us. But as these high profile incidents remind us they also challenge us in demonstrating that we can’t take such acquired values for granted, for me, more than anything about golf, it is this that I think Tiger has enabled all of us to learn.

How do you think we can better motivate and support young people to learn from and avoid repeating some the mistakes of their role models and predecessors?