Dan Marino, the once great quarterback of the Miami Dolphins fathered a child out-of-wedlock in 2005 with a then-35-year-old CBS production assistant and paid her millions to keep it a secret.  Though Marino retired thirteen years ago, he has remained in the spotlight, appearing weekly on NFL Today on CBS. It’s also where he met Donna Savattere, the mother of his love child.  In his statement Marino said, “This is a personal and private matter.  I take full responsibility both personally and financially for my actions now as I did then. We mutually agreed to keep our arrangement private to protect all parties involved.”  Marino had long been considered the role model for a professional athlete, husband and father.  He and his wife Claire have been married for twenty-eight years and have six children.  But there are two points that must be made. First, why are athletes role models?  Most often, professional athletes are from backgrounds where their athletic abilities allow them to escape their circumstances but that doesn’t mean you would your children to emulate them.  Athletes bring us joy because of what they do on the field play, not for what they do off the field in their personal lives.  They are just human beings, often less perfect than the average citizen.  People look up to them because of the their wealth and notoriety; the two worst reasons to look up to anyone.  Second, Dan Marino did not make a mistake.  Since no one ever takes responsibility for their actions, saying “I made a mistake” is supposed to get you a pass.  “Oh he just made a mistake”.  Nonsense!  Dan Marino, for reasons we do not know, but could guess, chose to have an affair with a very attractive younger woman.  We should assume he cared about her and enjoyed her company.  He was of course careless which leads one to believe, he wasn’t concerned about getting her pregnant.  But make no mistake, he made a choice.  Choices, if made willingly, are never mistakes, even when they bare unintended results.  Hindsight doesn’t apply here.  There are no “do-overs” in life when it results in a child.  The so-called “mistake”, is only out there to make his wife feel better.  I made a mistake means I don’t want a divorce, I just wanted to see what that other woman looked like naked.  How refreshing would it be if he said, “I had an affair because I had feelings for her and although I don’t want a divorce now, it wasn’t a mistake”.  “I’m a grown man and made a choice”.  Boy would I have respect for him.  Let’s also not be naive and assume this is the one and only affair he ever had.  And by the way, Who Cares?!