A la Carte from the Hero Menu : Letting the media anoint athletes as role models is a problem that goes beyond O. J. Simpson. Character is what counts.

“Where would I be if there were no sports? Would I still be your hero?” Michael Jordan and Jackie Joyner-Kersee ask this question in a series of televised public-service announcements. It’s an especially haunting question in the wake of the drama surrounding O.J. Simpson.

Sports has been a metaphor for American upward mobility for at least half a century, maybe longer. The lure of public recognition, adulation and yes, money, has spurred many an athletically gifted young person to excel in hopes of reaching the American Dream via the playing field, court or ring.

For better or worse, this has been especially true for African Americans, as a disproportionate number of our icons seem to be athletes. The reasons are obvious: For one thing, athletic competition, for many years, was one of the only places a black American could successfully challenge a white one without suffering dire consequences. (Even then, there was some ambivalence: When Jack Johnson beat Jim Jeffries in 1910, some white Americans were distinctly unhappy that Johnson had prevailed over the Great White Hope in the boxing ring. It just wasn’t seemly, they argued, for a black man to stand over an inert white one.) For another, sports figures per se are revered in America’s pantheon of folk heroes.

In some cases, success through sports has worked wondrously well for us. Jesse Owens became an international hero through his prowess in track and field and was praised for his quiet dignity at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Bill Russell, Wes Unseld, Lenny Wilkins and John Lucas, after impressive careers as professional basketball players, parlayed their intelligence and drive into coaching, to become among the few blacks in sports management. Tennis great Arthur Ashe was a role model until his death and deeply respected for the same reason Olympian Joyner-Kersee is today: Both gave consistent service to their communities and were always ready to reach back and inspire young people to be their best. Sports gave them entree, but character allowed them to use sports to build constructive lives--and to encourage others to do the same.

So where would O. J. be without sports? By his own admission, he was an indifferent student and a kid whom trouble seemed to find easily and often. If he hadn’t received a visit from one of his own heroes--Willie Mays--Simpson might not have been inspired to pull himself together to finish high school and attend USC, where he began his sprint into history. His agility, grace and comforting public geniality made him a natural for national endorsements, which, in turn, helped him to become universally recognized and admired.

But great athletes do not automatically heroes make, even when they’re given to us by media that may have selfish reasons for exhaling them. I see the hero menu as a la carte, and I’ll choose whom I’ll have and leave whom I won’t.

So I choose Bob Moses, a former civil-rights activist whose Math Project, now replicated in more than 20 U.S. cities, will liberate more inner-city kids than the statistically daunting enticement of a professional athletic career ever could. And I choose Sophia Bracy Harris, whose Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama has provided a head start for some of Alabama’s poorest children. And Arthur Mitchell, who gave up what promised to be a stellar career as a classical dancer to create the Dance Theatre of Harlem and thus allow millions of children of color to dream that they, too, could dance “The Firebird,” “Coppelia” or “Giselle.”

Maybe what we should learn from the whole O. J. mess is this: It’s time for us to start choosing our heroes more carefully, rather than letting others choose them for us. Perhaps then the next time a beloved public figure is revealed to be a deeply flawed human being, our shock won’t be as great, and we can get on with life--real life--a lot sooner.