Friday, December 14, 2007

Sports: cheating and lying

They're a bunch of cheaters and liars, aren't they?

We have the Patriots spying on the defensive signals of the Jets, tainting Bill Bellicheat's reputation as a "genius coach." Their response? Defend the coach's honor by playing well. And honestly, playing well is what gets them the pass, doesn't it?

The Bengals, with off the field criminal behavior destroying the team last year, were the laughing stock. Had they been play-off bound, they'd be admired for having overcome adversity off the field and pulling together on it.

Bobby Petrino has broken three long term contracts in the last 18 mos, assured Arthur Blank that he would stay with the Falcons the night before he turned up in Arkansas doing the Pig Suey Chant.

The Mitchell Report discloses what Colin Cowherd has been saying for years: Roger Clemens uses. And his usage overlaps with his explosive performances as a pitcher at age 41, better than at 25.

Marion Jones not only has had her medals stripped after she finally cracked and admitted steroid use. Now we have to watch the Olympic committee determine whether or not to take away the medals of her relay teammates... which of course they should. She cheated. Their loss.

Just last year an NBA referee admitted to being on the take with the mob for throwing games.

You just have to wonder how deep all of this deceit and desperation to win goes. Too much money in sports. Loss of virtue follows.

What I wonder is how long the public can enjoy sports when there is the threat of the other shoe dropping to undo all that celebration and success.

5 comments:

Brian said...

The discovery of the cheating and lying, while it disturbs me, doesn't take away the thrill I had in the moment. I'm very disappointed in Marion Jones and, of course, her medals mean nothing now. But, I still had the thrill of watching her then and believing she was clean. Same with watching Floyd Landis in the Tour De France a couple of years ago. It was still amazing to see him win and I got the rush of that, even though it's all gone now.

That's not to say I condone cheating. I want to believe and know the athletes are playing by the rules and if they are not, I want them caught and punished (to deter others). But, I love sports so much I don't know what amount of cheating and lying it would take to make me stop watching.

Peace,
Brian

Unknown said...

I don't know how I feel about it. It makes me less enthusiastic about 100 M dashes, that's for sure.

Drew Tatusko said...

And what about all of those really old hockey players? You mean Messier was clean? How about Brett Hull? The entire Red Wings team? They all have the same sunken eyes and squared off big heads to match Clemens, Knobloch, Bonds, Canseco, Palmeiro, McGuire, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and any other WWE dude.

Sean Salisbury made a good point this morning. He said, who is to say that half or more of the guys that Clemens pitched to were not also using something? Fact is, they probably were! And in baseball the regulations have been historically less strict than say the NFL of recent years. So it's not like they were doing illegal activity at the time... But one of my good friends stopped letting her kid watch pro sports in general because who wants that to be a role model? Sad to say that the Hank Aarons and Roberto Clemente's of the sports world are no more it seems...

Ampersand said...

I say make it all legal and let them harm their bodies as they so desire.

Perhaps I am too cynical as to believe that cheating and lying will always be a part of high stakes (power and money) environments -- sports, politics, (religion?).

Except for the Belicheating, that should never be legal, of course. : )

Drew Tatusko said...

Ampersand's comment reminds me of a Saturday Night Live skit from a while back with Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon or someone else from that cast.as a weightlifter in an Olympics that allowed any kind of doping and actually encouraged it. His attempt was something like a 550 pound clean and jerk and his arms ripped off. The commentator just said "Oooo, that's gotta hurt and was not what he had in mind today".

Oh wait...I just found it...go figure!

Something to post over on me blog as well...

All Drug Olympics