I believe there are many professional athletes who demonstrate qualities we would like our children to possess and, of course, we can admire athletic talents and skills that our children can aspire to match.
Everything is with certain limits, everything in excess is bad, so we must be vigilant (in the case of our children) of who are the possible heroes of our children, many times the sportsmen are very young people who are carried away by fame and money, being this mixture fatal, the dopamine tends to alter and the excesses begin to win over the reason, in my pias we have outstanding sportsmen, for example in the baseball, young boys that muhas times do not pass through a university and they feel like owners of the world, by the fanaticism, one of those boys was filmed giving a beating to his girlfriend, without apparent reason! this video I would never want my son to see! It's not the kind of education I want him to have, so no end is good, so we can keep him from following the negative behaviors he may see in some athletes.
I understand your concern and I feel it is important as parent to discuss these things with our kids. Discus why they feel athletes are hero’s and teach them to think critically about the topic.