In all the brouhaha over Ben Roethlisberger's latest episode of bad judgment and worse behavior, there's still a big question mark over his so-called "bodyguards."

According to the written complaint by the underage college student in Georgia who said the football player sexually assaulted her in a bathroom after both of them had been drinking, her girlfriends tried to get to her out but were blocked by Big Ben's entourage.

The girlfriends gave similar accounts of that night. One said the accuser "was dragged by a bodyguard to the back room. ... She was extremely intoxicated and not aware of what was happening." She said another friend tried to open the locked bathroom door, but "she was taken away by a bodyguard of Ben's."

Upping the slime factor is an accusation that Ben approached the alleged victim with his genitals out of his pants. How smooth.

A third friend told police that she "approached the other security guard and told him that she [the accuser] was in no shape to be back there with Ben Roethlisberger. He couldn't look me in the eye, and told me he didn't know what was going on. My friend went to open the door, and it was locked."

These men were also called "bodyguards" in an initial report by a Milledgeville, Ga., police officer. But subsequent reports had them as friends who were celebrating Big Ben's birthday with him. Two were off-duty Pennsylvania lawmen -- one a state trooper and one a Coraopolis police officer -- who had worked for the quarterback before but, according to one of their lawyers, were present that night as buddies.

Whatever they were there for, they did a lousy job of protecting Ben from his biggest threat -- himself.

If the alleged victim's girlfriends had been able to reach her and haul her out of there, the disgraced Steeler might not have spent the last month sweating out a possible rape charge. His enabling friends didn't do him any favors.

Maybe they saw their role as making sure Mr. Roethlisberger got whatever he wanted, no matter how ill-advised. But real friends don't let friends act like dolts when their career is on the line.

It's clear by now that what Mr. Roethlisberger requires is not a bodyguard but a baby sitter. Someone to keep a close watch to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or others (off the field, anyway). Someone to get up in his face in civilian life and say "No no, Benny. Pittsburgh Steelers do not lock drunken young women in tiny bathrooms and force themselves on them in any fashion."

As Georgia District Attorney Fredric D. Bright said on Tuesday, Ben needs to grow up. This was in the same news conference where he announced there would be no criminal charges because he didn't have enough evidence to prove a rape had occurred.

"We do not prosecute morals," he said. "We prosecute crimes."

Ben can't keep dodging his own bullets this way. It's one thing to be young and stupid when you're young and stupid. It's quite another to fit that description when you're a key member of a storied football organization with more female fans than any other team in the league -- and whose owners don't tend to excuse moral or legal turpitude in their players (see this week's trade of Santonio Holmes).

Ben is 28 years old. In 2006, he became the youngest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl. Three years later, his team took the trophy again. The fans have loved him when he was on top and pulled for him when he wasn't. The Rooney family has valued him, to the tune of an eight-year, $105 million contract. His coach has had faith in him. His teammates, for the most part, have respected him.

Nobody gets where he's gotten without a strong will and tremendous discipline. Off the field, though, that discipline seems to wither. Ben keeps flirting with disaster -- the helmetless motorcycle crash, the civil lawsuit by a Nevada woman who claims he sexually assaulted her in a Lake Tahoe resort, and now this.

Maybe all the good stuff didn't mean enough to him, or maybe he thought he could get away with acting like a dimwit because he is, after all, him.

Steelers President Art Rooney II said on Thursday that appropriate discipline would be forthcoming in a few weeks. After that, he said, "We intend to allow Ben the opportunity to prove to us he is the teammate and citizen we all believe he is capable of being."

How are they going to do that -- put him in a bar full of wasted college girls and see if he can resist?

I'd like to see him rehabilitated, too. I'd also like to see the rest of us get real about our expectations of professional athletes. This pedestal thing is getting old.

These are men who happen to be extraordinarily good at their sport. The notion that this makes them role models in any other aspect of life not only makes no sense, it has been shot through with holes time and again.

Of course, the pros may be upstanding people, generous, fair-minded, good examples for young people. But that's because of who they are (like Troy Polamalu and Charlie Batch), not what they do on the field.

The job makes them rich and famous, puts them in the public eye. It does not automatically bestow wisdom, character, humility or common sense. If anything, the huge amounts of money and misplaced hero worship can work against those traits.

Off the job, sports stars should be held to the same laws and standards of common decency as the rest of us. Expecting them to be paragons of virtue, however, is asking for disappointment.

It's possible that Ben can still become a decent person and a great asset to the team. Meanwhile, we'd do well to look for heroes elsewhere.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.