Image of Bryant may bounce back

Can great athletes put scandals behind them and regain much, if not all, of their former glory? Recent history suggests that’s the case -- which could be a good sign for Kobe Bryant.

In recent years, the sports pages have been filled with superstars who escaped criminal convictions and went on to push away or eliminate lingering clouds of suspicion. The key to returning to the public’s good graces seems to lie in three factors: the passage of time, the avoidance of future criminal charges and, most important, stellar athletic performance.

So it may take many years, but Kobe Bryant stands a good chance of becoming just “Kobe” again in the hearts and minds of the public. While sports marketers are predicting corporations will probably continue to shy away from using Bryant for their huge product endorsement contracts for at least several years, cultural observers say they believe the public may be quicker to forgive.

Though he still faces a civil law suit stemming from a sexual encounter with a young woman in a Colorado hotel room last year, Bryant was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing earlier this week when the sexual assault charges against him were abruptly dropped.

In recent decades, the most dramatic example of a high-profile athlete exceeding even their pre-scandal popularity is boxer Muhammad Ali. Found guilty of violating the Selective Service Act and barred from boxing in the late ‘60s, Ali was branded a traitor and reviled throughout much of the country. But when his conviction was overturned, Ali, through a combination of integrity, showmanship, and pugilistic skill, became universally known as “The Greatest.”

“He probably went from the most hated individual in America to one of the most beloved,” says Todd Boyd, a USC professor of critical studies. “Today, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that has a bad word to say about him.”

The ability to forgive -- or conveniently forget -- on the part of the sporting public in particular should never be underestimated.

Even in Mike Tyson’s extreme case -- he endured a slew of sexual assault accusations before being convicted on a rape charge in the early 1990s -- the boxer was allowed back into the sport after his prison sentence.

And if Tyson had become champion again, he might have been able to recover his former acclaim. But Tyson continued to have run-ins with the law and permanently destroyed his credibility when he bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a boxing match.

“Tyson was always seen as an animal in the media,” says Elayne Rapping, a professor of American Studies at the University of Buffalo and the author of several books on media and pop culture. “He’s no Tiger Woods and never will be. His image will never recover.”

Goodwill on his side

In stark contrast, Bryant’s image was squeaky clean prior to his recent legal troubles. As such, the Laker guard enjoyed public adoration -- and multimillion-dollar endorsements.

The residual goodwill should help his climb back to respectability, says Robert L. Thompson, a Syracuse University professor who tracks pop culture trends. “He really was the Tom Hanks of the NBA. People want to believe him and want to forgive him,” Thompson says. “As opposed to someone say like a Martha Stewart who, even if she didn’t do it, we still want to see her go to jail.”

It’s true that once charges were filed, Bryant lost millions in endorsement contracts. But it’s also true that he had begun to be passed over for contracts, or be paid far less than other athletes, before his legal problems surfaced. Bryant lost out on a contract with shoemaker Reebok, and Nike eventually paid him roughly half what the shoe company shelled out for LeBron James, who at the time had never played in an NBA game.

“Kobe never had street credibility,” says Boyd, author of “Young, Black, Rich and Famous: Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion and the Transformation of American Culture.” “Advertisers like edge, they like hip-hop and they aren’t afraid of it like they once were.”

In some cases, as with Allen Iverson of the NBA and Ray Lewis of the NFL, a brush with the law can sometimes boost a player’s “street credibility,” thereby enhancing marketability and public fascination.

In 2002, Iverson, the bad boy superstar guard for the Philadelphia 76ers, was cleared of more than a dozen felony charges stemming from an incident in which he stormed into a cousin’s apartment with a gun in search of his wife. The charges, which carried a maximum sentence of up to 70 years for the tattooed player, were dropped.

Likewise, Baltimore Raven all-pro linebacker Ray Lewis was cleared of two counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of two men outside an Atlanta nightclub in 2000. Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of obstructing a police investigation and agreed to testify in the case.

In both cases, the men have stayed clear of further criminal charges and arrests, and the incidents failed to tarnish their images. Lewis has begun to quietly re-enter the world of endorsements, including one for a popular video game. Meanwhile, Iverson most recently represented the nation at the Olympics.

Perhaps the only unpardonable sin for a star athlete may not be physical harm to a person but harm to a sport itself. Major League baseball great Pete Rose, who after denying for more than a decade that he bet on baseball, earlier this year admitted he did. While he’s permanently banned from baseball, no criminal charges were ever filed in connection with his gambling. (Rose did serve a five-month prison sentence for filing false income taxes.)

“Kobe’s mistake had nothing to do with the game of basketball,” Boyd says. The adultery “was a personal mistake and he admitted it.”

“But Rose was a manager of a team with the ability to determine the outcome of some of those games. He impugned the integrity of the game. I don’t think people will ever forgive that.”