If the year 1991 taught us anything, it is to choose our role models carefully and preferably to look for them in places other than on the athletic field.

Looking back, it seems to me the year began with Red Sox star Roger Clemens involved in a Houston bar fight and accelerated straight downhill from there in the character and leadership department.

A couple of University of Maine hockey players end up in a Minnesota hoosegow for an after-hours brawl at the Final Four.

Lenny Dykstra of the Phillies cracks up his car while driving under the influence, demolishing his team’s pennant chances in the process.

Lewiston boxer Joey Gamache wins his long-coveted World Title, then gets summoned for assaulting his ex-wife.

Otis Nixon of the Braves can’t stay away from the white powder long enough to collect a possible National League MVP award and ends up suspended for the postseason.

Heavyweight contender Mike Tyson is accused of rape. Trial pending.

The topper of toppers: Earvin “Magic” Johnson retires from his status as one of the two or three best basketball players in the world after testing HIV positive, a direct consequence of his admitted promiscuity.

Now Dexter Manley, a former Washington Redskin great and a three-time loser under the NFL’s drug testing policy, became a four-time loser this week and tearfully retired from the game at age 32.

Whew. Whether on TV or right here in Maine, it’s getting so sports should come with one of those parental warning tags you see prior to the start of the movie. “This game is rated R and may not be suitable for young viewers as some of the participants have little or no control over themselves.”

There haven’t been many years where I’ve felt the negative sports stories outweighed the positive stories, or even broke even. But looking back on the previous 11 1/2 months, this year has come as close to that ratio as I’d care to see it.

Is there a lesson here?

I hope so. I hope we’ve finally hit rock bottom when it comes to being disappointed by the actions of people who play games for a living or, supposedly, for an education. I know I have.

Prior to 1991, you could count me among those somewhat naive souls who truly believed a kid idolizing an athlete, pro or otherwise, was a good, even healthy, thing. And as the opposite side to that coin, I also believed athletes had a responsibility as “role models.” I believed athletes understood this responsibility, presumably having once been kids who idolized athletes themselves.

Because they were what I considered role models, I believed athletes also understood they should be held to a higher set of standards than the fans in the stands and, knowing this, that they would act accordingly.

This year has driven that out of me.

The hard truth is, it’s simply too risky to encourage a kid to emulate an athlete in this day and age. I realize the majority of sports stars haven’t been arrested or tested positive for mind-altering or body-altering substances. Still, too many of them are turning up in the sports pages and on the TV sports news shows for the wrong reasons.

Why? There are undoubtedly hundreds of psychological theories and explanations. But I think it comes down to one basic truth.

Nothing exceeds like excess.

The pros are making too much money at too young an age to handle it. Witness Bobby Bonilla being paid $29.6 million over five years to play baseball. It has become grotesque.

Those figures no more relate to the average fan than does the gross national product of Denmark. And all that money means college athletes want to be pros worse than ever.

To me, the great lesson of ’91 is the athlete has finally succeeded in distancing himself from the fan enough, both financially and morally, to lose the spot on the pedestal he has occupied in our society for so long.

There is a bright side to this. Maybe now we, as parents and sports fans, can turn the emphasis away from watching sports so much. Instead, we can emphasize participating in sports. After all, shouldn’t a kid’s favorite role models be Mom and Dad?

At the very least, we can watch sports with a more critical eye. And in 1992 when an athlete makes headlines for the wrong reason, we can point them out to our kids and say, “See. This is what happens to people who don’t appreciate what they have.”