I consider myself a frequent movie watcher. Most of my weekends, and weekdays for that matter, are filled with watching random movies. These range from instant comedy classics like “Old School” to movies about an evil Santa that eats kids every Christmas like “Rare Exports.” There is one common element in most movies: the hero and the villain. It’s easy to see how this is present in almost every movie. Darth Vader, The Joker and Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear are all good examples of how twisted and ruthless these villains truly can be.

The roles of villains and heroes aren’t just limited to the screen, though. As fans, it’s natural to hate anyone on the rival team or just on the team that’s on the schedule in a given week. But there are certain players that are agreed upon by most fans as the “bad guys” of their sport. Looking into this a little more seems to suggest many villains aren’t as bad as we tend to make them out to be.

A year ago, heated discussions began on where the top free agents would go in the NBA. At the center of it all was LeBron James. Many had an idea he would leave Cleveland, but once it was official, hoards of NBA fans seemed to immediately peg LeBron as the NBA’s biggest villain. This was all because he wanted to play with his friends in Miami and try to win a championship before he became the desperate veteran hopping from team to team in search of a shot at a ring.

This is the same league where Kobe Bryant was accused of raping a woman in Colorado and is generally not considered the most hated player in the league. He changed his number, won two championships without Shaq, earned an MVP and saw pretty much all of his endorsers and fans stick with him.

This is all over sports. Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo gained some attention for comments he made about himself in reference to why he gets booed. He was quoted as saying, “I think that because I am rich, handsome and a great player people are envious of me.” Based on what I’ve seen on the pitch and heard from female classmates, he seems to be telling the truth. Yet, he continually goes to matches and gets booed out of the stadium by nearly every fan.

There is a greater fascination with why it became trendy to hate on Tim Tebow. It seemed that the media and his teammates all decided to gang up against him and try to make sure he never got the chance to have a career in the NFL. To me, this was a little crazy.

I do believe that there are athletes in professional sports that deserve to be generally considered evildoers for many different reasons. It just comes down to the fact that as fans, we need to make sure the professional athletes we pick to call a villain really deserve it.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a negative opinion of everyone I have mentioned above. But maybe it’s time to reevaluate our favorite and least favorite athletes to determine if they should really be considered villains.