Earlier this week, Ray Lewis became the second NFL player this season to be charged with murder. While this is more severe than most cases of criminal deviance involving athletes, it is far from an anomaly.

From Mike Irvin to Mike Tyson, athletes are notorious for getting involved in a wide variety of criminal activity. Even local boys like Sam Mack and Kenny Pratt have gotten into the act.

Athletes and crime go together like beer and pizza — or beer and anything else for that matter.

It is fair to note that top athletes are under much more scrutiny than the rest of us “civilians.” If a basketball player is caught with a bag of weed, it’s a top story on the 10 o’clock news. If your buddy Floyd is busted it just means you’ll have to find someone else to give you a ride to Taco Bell.

Even if the crimes of athletes are blown out of proportion by the media, they do exist. Beyond that, many of them may exist for the same reasons.

A person is more likely to commit a crime if they do not feel they will be held personally responsible for it. Who, in our culture, is held less responsible for their actions than athletes?

At an early age, children in this country are thrust into the sports machine. Most of us were chewed up and spit out at a fairly early age, but kids with real talent are identified early and deified for it.

Flash forward to high school. Teachers and administrators are notorious for making concessions to top athletes who get in trouble or don’t make the grades.

Even if they’re not causing trouble, athletes have their coaches watching over them to make sure they’re eligible for the big game.

Here at Iowa State, student athletes in high-profile sports still have a small army watching out to make sure they’re eligible to play.

They receive intense tutoring, scholarships and even have people assigned to check up on them to make sure they’re in their classes.

Many of these things seem harmless and, in fact, most of them are.

But when you multiply these types of special privileges out over a lifetime, you create individuals who have no sense of responsibility.

Most of us got into trouble at some time in high school. When we did, we didn’t have a coach or even a recruiter to face the music for us.

Likewise, when we don’t go to class, we fail. No one’s looking out for us.

The result is simply that we learn that we are responsible for our actions. I failed a class my freshman year. I haven’t come close to failing a class since because I’ve learned from my mistake.

If someone has someone to constantly clean up after them, they never learn. What starts as juvenile mischief or even simple academic ineptitude can keep growing into more severe forms of deviance.

I’ve singled out coaches, administrators, etc., but they’re not the only ones guilty of this behavior. Our whole culture is built around glorifying the athlete.

As I mentioned before, most everyone is involved in the sports machine at some point in time. Somewhere deep down in our psyche the idea that our athletes represent our best and brightest has been imbedded.

That’s why whenever a professional athlete is even just an average, productive member of society, they’re held up as a hero. It’s impossible to watch a sporting event without seeing a feature story on how one of the players has overcome some terrible odds.

To me, being helped through school and then being paid big money to play a sport does not constitute terrible odds.

Ultimately, it is often the athletes who are harmed by society’s warped perception of who they should be.

For a few, the gravy train rolls all the way into the professional ranks and they may never be held accountable for anything other than missing a blocking assignment.

For many others, however, responsibilities that they should have been weaned on since an early age are suddenly thrust on them when their potential ceases to justify their protection.

Collegiate athletes who have had everything handed to them for their entire life may be just an injury away from having to fight for everything, without any of the social mechanisms necessary to do so.

For Ray Lewis, the free ride may have ended in Atlanta last Sunday.

He finally committed an act of deviance so severe that even being a pro-bowler won’t get him off the hook. Perhaps, if he had been held responsible for smaller indiscretions in the past, he would have had the good sense to avoid his present situation.

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Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. He is assistant arts and entertainment editor of the Daily.