Close to Home: How do athletes learn to be good role models?

Looking back on the 2016 NFL season, the year's most talked about player wasn't Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers or Cam Newton. It's was a second string quarterback who was on a 2-14 team.

No matter what you think of 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's actions, you've heard about them — probably a lot. When athletes in this country act, Americans takes notice. We notice because we love sports and our eyes are already on athletes when they do something, good, bad or otherwise. We notice because story after story has focused our attention on mistakes and abuse by athletes. Players like Ray Rice, Ray McDonald and Greg Hardy have left people watching and wondering if athletes' behavior lives up to our standards.

We also look to athletes because we want to believe in them. We see their determination, bravery and intensity and admire it. This admiration starts long before athletes become professional or famous. From middle school, if not earlier, kids look up to their peers on school teams. Without any training, young athletes act as role models to their friends and neighbors. It's a privilege and a burden.

How do these young athletes learn to be good role models and to be noticed for the right things?

For the past four years, Sonoma County has worked with boys on middle school and high school teams to teach and empower them. Funded by the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, Coaching Boys Into Men is the unique creation of a collaboration between experienced coaches and experts in the prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault. Research has shown that when asked, young men want to help prevent violence but feel that they have not been asked or taught how to do so. Coaching Boys Into Men was created to help these young men meet that challenge.

We want to invite, not indict, these young athletes by appealing to their urge to be role models in their small spheres and to empower them to use their status as opinion leaders to change minds.

During a 12-week program, constructed to work around a team's busy schedule, coaches use their own experience to teach their athletes about vital issues like consent, when aggression crosses the line and the rules of online interaction. The program includes engagement with athletes at 'teachable moments' that arise during the season and help athletes develop necessary skills for the life of a young adult.

Coaching Boys Into Men also supports coaches in dealing with some of the hardest topics to discuss with young men. We urge everyone to reach out to us for more information about Coaching Boys Into Men and how it can be brought to your school or league.

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month and the Sonoma County District Attorney's office Human Trafficking Task Force will be participating in public events all month along with community partners such as the Polly Klaas Foundation, local police departments, Verity and others. Please join us for a free screening of 'The Long Night,' an award-winning documentary about seven lives forever changed by trafficking, on Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. at Finley Community Center in Santa Rosa.

Zach Neeley is co-facilitator for Coaching Boys Into Men and an employee at Santa Rosa-based Verity, a community nonprofit that works to eliminate all forms of violence with a focus on sexual assault and abuse. Patrick Cass is the Coaching Boys Into Men facilitator for YWCA Sonoma County. He lives in Santa Rosa.