I wrote in this space some 18 months ago a piece about the “locker room culture.” It was in response to some of our athletic heroes acting out in public and then returning to the womb of their sub-culture and being welcomed back.

This is a reprint, with additional thoughts at the end, concerning the situation at Penn State.

May 2010 –Most of us live our lives in a relatively small bubble. We go to work, spend time with our family, engage in some kind of recreation and, perhaps, attend a place of worship. Within that bubble, we know the norms, values and rules to live by and, generally, we live by them. The sense of belonging, safety and like-mindedness that comes from our participation within that bubble is valuable to us and we will work to preserve our bubbles and protect it from outside threat.

Another way of saying this is that we grow up in sub-cultures or we find sub-cultures that we are drawn to and remain within them. The Midwest is a sub-culture. New York City can be called a sub-culture. A profession, such medicine, a religion, such as Catholicism and a particular socio-economic class are sub-cultures. So is the military and so are professional sports.

All cultures are marked by a way of communicating, behaving and treating others. Clothing, uniforms, specific values, strong beliefs and stands on public issues can also mark cultures. Apparently a new subculture is forming in American politics, called the Tea Party.

When we agree with the values and behaviors of our “bubbles” we began to identify with others in our group and in our commonly held belief systems. We find a home there and, like home, our subculture will take us in when we need it, when we have been buffeted by change, loss or our own misbehavior.

Now think: Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger or countless other professional athletes who have “strayed,” that is they have left their own subculture, violated norms that are held by the society at large and could not wait to get back to the clubhouse or the locker room. There, they would find other athletes who, for the most part, would forgive their misbehavior and welcome them back into the fold.

Listening to Big Ben recite his short speech after it was announced that he would not be charge with any crime as a result of his encounter with an inebriated young woman in Georgia, I could almost feel his sense of urgency to get this over with and go back to the locker room with his friends. He apologized to them. He apologized to his organization. He apologized to the league. (Imagine the size of his bubble growing around him.)

I did not hear any mention of the young woman, with whom he had allegedly been intimate in a very small restroom.  Apparently he had not hurt her. Apparently he had done nothing wrong. And you can bet the price of a season ticket to Steelers games that his teammates will welcome him back.  Not only will his fellow football players welcome him “home” to the multi-million dollar locker room, they will commiserate and many of them will identify with him.

They are part of a subculture. They are part of an elite group encased by our American society that has a strong set of values and ways of communicating and behaving. Some of what they value has to do with the way they treat women. Misogynist is a strong word – a man who hates women — but it enters one’s mind when confronted with incident after incident of forced sex, multiple secret partners, domestic violence and control imposed by force on wives, girlfriends and perfect strangers.

Many, many athletes are loyal, loving family men with healthy relationships. Many are not. Of the parts of our society that are blessed with education and wealth, athletes seem to stand out like a very sore thumb – pictures of men who have, at the least, disregard for the rights, feelings, safety and very humanness of women.

What will cause these men to change?

Those of us who love sports and watch from our stadium seats and couches must begin to openly express our love for women too. If we respect the feminine in our culture, we must start demanding more than just a legal determination if there is a case or not in matters involving rape, beatings and emotional violence. Athletes must face the community at large, not just their own comrades and not just the justice system. They must, if we are to be healthy as a nation, be held accountable for their behaviors in the court of a larger community of people who value women.

A team can act. Owners can act. The league can act. And those of us, men and women, who participate with our money and our attention to the tube, can act as well. Athletes who resort to abuse, manipulation and violence must know that they are not privileged and not immune to a larger culture that holds women in high regard.

Nov. 2011—We see in today’s headlines about Penn State the effects of a powerful, self-contained sub-culture that apparently held the belief that it could keep secrets and preserve the power and the rewards it garnered by its position in the athletic world.

We also see the burden and responsibilities, as well as the rewards, placed on and handed to leaders, no matter the sphere.

When one accepts the reins of leadership and the power inherent in being idolized, he or she cannot escape the fact of higher expectations, higher moral standards and, perhaps, the illusion of perfection.

In high school, on the college campus and in professional sports, we give sports heroes, and those associated with them, an enormous amount of influence. Sometimes they ignore it or don’t want it. (Remember Charles Barkley—“I am not a role model.”) But the fact is they cannot escape it. We give it to them without asking. We place the laurel wreath on the head. We place them above us and they are rewarded with money, fame and power.

And then, as with all idols—in sports, politics, religion or entertainment– we discover that they have feet of clay. They are not and never can be, perfect. And in today’s atmosphere of total scrutiny that imperfection cannot long go undiscovered.

Leaders—and these people are leaders, like them or not—must fully realize the yoke or expectations they are taking on, along with the money, power and the respect we as a society are giving them. Perhaps that should be part and parcel of their education, such as it is, when they are preparing to enter the public eye.

And we, the young men and women who idolize and the parents and grandparents of those boy and girls, must guard against the illusion of perfection and the depth of the idolatry we offer. Not only do leaders and heroes have responsibilities, the rest of us have a responsibility of governing our own consent, of paying close attention to the icons we and our children create.

Along with power comes responsibility. Always. And on both sides.