Jackie Robinson!

His name echoes in my brain as I listen to some National Basketball Association players and commentators drop the word “provocation” to justify what Ron Artest did in Detroit. They say poor, fragile Ron Artest was “provoked” by a cup of liquid thrown by one of those boozed-up fans in the expensive seats.

Nonsense. Real provocation is what Jackie Robinson endured his first three years in the major leagues. He was hit by pitches nine time his rookie year. He was spiked repeatedly. He got death threats in every city. He was called the most vile, racist names by fans and opposing players.

That’s provocation.

As part of his understanding with Dodgers boss Branch Rickey, however, Robinson never retaliated. He was a natural-born street fighter who never struck back. He had tactical emotional discipline. He turned the other cheek, despite his fierce competitive nature.

That’s why Jackie Robinson is a role model for the annals of history and democracy. He accepted that he had to control his anger to make the experiment in baseball integration a success. It depended on his capacity not to see every provocation as disrespect to his manhood. He showed a maturity and citizenship that Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, and Jermaine O’Neill, who all attacked fans, couldn’t even imagine in their thug-life code.

The three Indiana Pacers players might have had a shred of justification if they had attacked the particular thug fans who had thrown beer and debris at them. But they just went into the seats to slug fans at random.

I no longer think of athletes as role models. They are too rich, too spoiled, too entitled, too selfish, too greedy, too separated from the community of fans, too much in their own claustrophobic world of agents, discos, and groupies.

The few obvious exceptions, such as Derek Jeter and Tim Duncan, stand out like mutants. But there is a synergy between sports and American culture in general. Sports do not exist in a vacuum. The old-school professionalism that created role models such as Henry Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Walter Payton, and Bill Russell no longer exists.

Now, both players and fans have grown up in a popular culture that has become more and more violent over the past 25 years.

Just think about: all the violent movies that have flooded the market and topped the box office charts; gangsta rap with its violent lyrics and insider murders of its stars; the rise in domestic violence and teenage gangs; grotesquely violent video games that kids start playing at 8 or 9; the Iraq war on the news every night with pictures of torture and dead bodies; Jerry Springer; Monica Seles being stabbed by a deranged fan; Mike Tyson’s rape conviction and ear-biting cannibalism; the popularity of wrestling on TV among preteens; the hockey fights and stick muggings that are not discouraged by that league.

Ron Artest grew up absorbing these images. He clearly has anger-management and emotional issues -he was fined or suspended eight times before the Detroit debacle. In his post-riot interviews he has been strange, as he pushed a rap CD released on his own label, to change the subject. A week before the debacle he had asked his coach for time off from playing – while getting paid – to promote the CD.

The other issue here is the culture of the NBA. Last week, a veteran who is vice president of the players union, Antonio Davis, spoke some blunt truths. He said the league has become overrun with unprepared young players.

“I think that’s what our image has become,” Mr. Davis said, ” a bunch of young guys who are really not understanding what it is to play in the NBA, what it means to put that uniform on, what it means to be making a living playing the game of basketball.”

Mr. Davis and other veteran players are now talking about an age threshold for the NBA, like the one that already is in effect for the National Football League. That would require high-school hotshots to serve an apprenticeship in life skills and professionalism.

My view of the NBA was changed forever by the no-teamwork, no-desire performance of the 2004 “dream team” at the Olympics. When they lost, their body language seemed to say, “So what? Big deal that we lost.” I’ll never forget Stephon Marbury’s smirking, slouching indifference. Mr. Marbury’s immature attitude that day in Greece is what’s wrong with the NBA today.