Athletes: Winning off the field

What would you do if you were an athlete? Strut your stuff in full-body Under Armour? Play to the crowd on game day? Waltz past the velvet rope at bars and events?

How about helping out with a coat drive? Or volunteering with illiterate kids? Or traveling to the Green Festival to help promote recycling awareness and fair economies?

Maybe most of us don't associate these charitable activities with athletes — collegiate or professional — but between games and practices and all that comes with the territory, America's athletes are constantly involved in their communities.

It's not in an athlete's job description. They could retreat into their mansions and count their millions, but most don't. You've seen the commercials featuring Dwyane Wade driving his SUV full of sports equipment to a team of underprivileged kids and then pedaling away on a rickety bike or Reggie Bush and company volunteering in New Orleans. Brian Roberts of the Orioles holds an annual event where he and other players entertain guests to raise money for a children's hospital.

And not every philanthropic event is televised: Players often make trips incognito to children's hospitals and shelters just to put a smile on a kid's face or comforting someone who's down and out.

There's even an organization called Athletes for Hope with a mission to inspire other athletes to get involved. It was founded by athletes who have achieved excellence in their sport and their communities — Warrick Dunn, Mia Hamm, Lance Armstrong, Muhammad Ali and Cal Ripken Jr., to name a few — and who encourage and assist others to do the same.

University athletes do it too. Last year the Terp women's basketball team, on its way to an ACC championship, took time to practice with the Prince George's County Special Olympics.

The gymnastics team volunteered at the Green Festival this fall. As if school and practice and meets weren't enough, they spent a weekend sorting trash.

For their Nov. 14 football game, the Terps sported Under Armour-sponsored jerseys with camouflage shoulders and words like "Country" and "Service" on the back, to be auctioned off to raise money for the Wounded Warrior charity. They also showed videos of Terp veterans on campus and even brought soldiers out on the field before the game and at halftime to be honored by the crowd.

Similarly, at the first men's basketball game of the year, a boy with cancer got to sit on the court with his dad and watch the game. During warm-ups, Greivis Vasquez went over to talk to him and shake his hand. Say what you will about the guy — he made that kid's night like no one else could have.

This isn't to diminish what the rest of us do to help out our neighbors — after all, average Joes perform the majority of community service. But the truth is, athletes, entertainers and other role models have a singular and exceptional ability to have an effect on people's lives. We watch them, we admire them, and at the end of the day, when they talk, we listen. What they do, we do. Kids idolize the stars they see, and these appointed heroes in turn have a chance to do what us mere mortals can't: Make a difference just by showing up.

Athletes have the unique ability to help people — that the ones on campus actually do it makes me proud to be a Terp.

Bethany Offutt is a sophomore criminology and criminal justice and psychology major. She can be reached at offutt at umdbk dot com.