Supporting an Athlete.

It is no secret that I'm a Steelers fan mostly because of Ben Roethlisberger. I followed him in college and continued to follow him when the Steelers drafted him. Once watching the Steelers, my husband and I just fell in love with the hard hitting, Defensive team and its been the Steelers for us every since.

So what do you when your favorite player, someone you've actually met and found to be a nice guy and whose jersey you own has been accused of sexual assault twice in twelve months? Having volunteered for the Rape Crisis Center for years I feel reluctant to judge the accusers as I know how hard it is to actually prosecute when you've been sexually assaulted. If the accusations are true at all, then all my sympathy are with the women. But it is also not uncommon for athletes to be falsely accused due to their status. I feel torn and disgusted about this whole issue. On the one hand, if these women are lying, then they're making it harder for real victims to prosecute because they're setting up the precedence that women lie about this sort of thing all the time, when in fact only about 8% of accusations are found to be false. But on the other hand, if Big Ben's misusing his fame and his strength to assault women then he should be in jail and I'm disgusted to own anything with his name on it. But until all the facts are in, I feel like I'm in limbo. I doubt it will be, but hopefully this will all be cleared up before the next season starts, if it'll ever be cleared up at all.