Parenting & Family Quote by Bob Gibson

Gibson’s line lands like one of his inside fastballs: blunt, impatient, and aimed at a target most people would rather keep abstract. The intent is refusal, but not the lazy kind. He’s rejecting a role society loves to assign to Black stars in particular: public morality mascot, ever-available “role model” for other people’s children. By phrasing it as a question, he exposes the entitlement baked into the demand. Why is that responsibility his by default? Why is the burden outsourced to a stranger with a uniform and a spotlight?

The subtext is about boundaries and hypocrisy. Gibson isn’t arguing against decency; he’s pointing out how “be an example” often means “be palatable,” “be grateful,” “be quiet,” “don’t embarrass us.” The parent who asks for an example is also asking for a curated version of a human being, stripped of anger, complexity, and privacy. Gibson flips the script with a simple imperative: you do the hard work. Model your own values. Don’t subcontract them to celebrity.

Context matters because Gibson came up in an era when Black athletes were simultaneously celebrated and policed, expected to represent “progress” while absorbing the daily indignities of segregation and its afterlives. His persona - hard-edged, uncompromising, famously uninterested in being liked - makes the quote feel less like a PR stance and more like a personal ethic. It works because it refuses the sentimental bargain: fame in exchange for compliance. Instead, it demands accountability where it belongs, at home.