It used to be so easy.

Back when I was a kid, all you did was flick on the TV and sit and watch sports.

You were moved, inspired and driven to be just like those guys, those athletes who dazzled you with their brilliance.

They were role models — or so we thought — because all those athletes were great talents, engaging with their followers and giving an image of being the perfect person.

Back then.

This is probably the point where I sound like I’m slipping back to that forbidden land. I sound like I’m reenacting my grandfather’s “You kids have it so easy” speech before talking about how he walked 10 miles to school, uphill both ways.

But, that’s not it. Everything has changed dramatically.

When I was young, my idol was Rocky Colavito, the right fielder for the Cleveland Indians. That’s who I wanted to be.

I wanted to play right field, which was a blessing to my Little League coaches. With my limited athletic skill set, that’s exactly where they wanted me to play. I volunteered to basically stand out of the way.

As I grew up, I was a huge fan of other athletes. I had man-crushes (or at least boy-crushes) on the likes of George Brett, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Larry Bird and John Havelick along the way and admired guys like Cal Ripken Jr. as I reached adulthood.

Those were the days.

But the good ol’ days are gone for good, or so it seems.

Nowadays, when you flick on the TV, the chances of seeing a game — a really good game — are about 50-50. There are so many games being beamed, the quality either fails or you have to be very specialized in your tastes.

And then there’s the other part. You turn to watch sports and you get the athletic version of a car wreck. All that stuff you don’t want to see, but can’t help staring at.

This week, there were two of those incidents.

First, Lance Armstrong admits that he blood doped while competing as a cyclist.

As it turns out, he was a recyclist. He took out blood to be used later, to help him dominate his sport.

Now, after years of rejecting the injection question, Armstrong decided it was time to end his deflections.

The second was the saga of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker who was duped into believing a woman he conversed with on social media was his soulmate. A very convoluted story tells how he was a victim of a hoax in which he developed an emotional connection with a “girlfriend” he never met, who “died” before he laid eyes on her.