As we’ve just been hearing, West Australia was in shock this week with the news that AFL star Ben Cousins – had been suspended indefinitely from the game, after failing to show up for a training session.

Dr Stanley H Teitelbaum (Teytle-borm) has written a book called “Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols” – he writes about the ‘unreal sports heaven’ in which many elite athletes exist, where everybody says ‘yes’ and nobody says ‘no.’

He writes about some of the stresses that elite athletes endure...

-There’s the pressure of living up to expectations
-The pressure of performing at a consistently high level
-The strain of dealing with the media, management and fans
-Having the details of your private life splashed around
-Having to live through even small incidents being magnified by the press

Sure there are also the perks - salaries of more than half a million dollars, the glamorous girlfriends and high society events, not to mention the fact their job is to play a game they love.

But do you think we’re expecting too much from our young sports stars?
Surely it’s only human for them, like the rest of us, to make mistakes…?

Or, do you think that as sporting role models, they have a greater responsibility to make more of an effort in terms of their personal conduct?