Post by TheShadow on Oct 18, 2007 19:00:43 GMT -5
www.insidebayarea.com/
Somewhere along the way in our culture, it became OK to sin for a win
By Marcus Thompson II, STAFF WRITER
Cheaters never prosper.
It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.
Honesty is the best policy.
There was a time when such cliches were emphasized in sports as metaphors for life, when the love of pure competition was the sole motivation, when athletes were celebrated as much for their character as their talent. Those days appear long gone, based on the state of sports today.
Fair play has taken a back seat — and maybe even rides in the trunk — as athletes are consumed with finding an edge.
As a result, the old adages have been replaced. Different catch phrases serve as tenets for a culture fueled by greed and governed by the bottom line.
It's only cheating if you get caught.
Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.
If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
In the world of sports, the ends — success, fame, fortune — justify the means. Cheating has long been part of competition. And today's sports figures seem more willing than ever to go beyond the boundsof fair play.
Cheating has reached new heights. Rather, new lows.
"Cheating has always existed and always will," said Alison Rhodius, who has been a sports psychologist for 14 years, the past seven as research director for sports psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill. "And it's not just in sports. It's across the board. These things happen in business, too. People push the lines and try to do more and more. Maybe it is a reflection of the way that this society has gone."
If it is a reflection, it is being mirrored in nearly every arena of sports, carried out by athletes, referees, coaches and owners.
NBA official Tim Donaghy confessed to betting on NBA games in which he officiated. He also gave insider tips to his bookies, who reportedly were mob-affiliated. His career is now over, and the NBA, one of the world's most popular leagues, is suffering from a public relations nightmare.
New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was caught Sept.9 having the New York Jets' defensive signals videotaped, which is in direct violation of NFL rules. The fallout revealed that Belichick has reportedly become somewhat of a master spy, which raises questions about how he became the NFL's best coach.
In July, a 780-page technical dossier on Ferrari cars was found at the home of rival Formula One team McLaren's chief designer, Mike Coughlan, who later was suspended. The McLaren team was fined $100 million by the World Motor Sport Council and stripped of its points. Disgruntled Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney, who allegedly supplied Coughlan the documents, was fired.
In September, Florida State announced that 23 athletes from nine sports, 17 of whom were on scholarship, were involved in a scandal in which an athletic department learning specialist provided test answers and wrote papers for students.
Track superstar Marion Jones, after years of vehement denials, confessed earlier this month to doping and handed over the five Olympic medals she won in the 2000 Summer Games. Her legendary career and once-stellar reputation is now forever tarnished.
The list goes on and on.
Not a recent trend
Sure, cheating is nothing new. The 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal is an infamous story of bribery. Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding will forever be remembered for hiring a goon to attack her competition, Nancy Kerrigan, in 1994. Rosie Ruiz won the 1980 Boston Marathon while barely breaking a sweat by jumping into the race for only the last half-mile. She qualified with a good showing in the New York Marathon, which she completed mostly on the subway.
The use of performance-enhancing drugs goes back a ways, too. Amphetamines ("greenies") were all the rage back in the day for an extra boost. Synthetic male hormones were the performance enhancer of choice in the 1960s and'70s, especially involving Olympic sports.
Still, today's cheating appears much more widespread and extreme. From performance-enhancing drugs, to corked bats, to spying, to academic fraud, to illegal recruiting tactics — people in sports seem willing to do anything these days.
"Somebody told me that you have to cheat to win," Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha said. "I don't think that's true, but that is some people's mentality. I don't agree. I think you can be as successful doing it the right way, and a lot of people feel that way."
Risk to reward ratio
One of the obvious reasons people cheat is for the payoff. Sports stars these days are so well compensated that many consider the reward to be worth the risk.
Winning brings a huge payday. Big contracts, endorsement deals and global fame await the athletes who can do the extraordinary. An extra lucrative deal awaits those who can perform at a high level a few years longer. A steady salary awaits the amateur or low-level player who can make it to the top ranks.
Take Jones, for example. She is a superb athlete by any standard. But she wasn't a global star until the summer of 2000, when she claimed five medals (three gold) in the Sydney Olympics. As a result, she became a household face. She signed endorsement deals with Nike, Oakley, TAG Heuer and American Express. With her endorsements, appearance fees and track earnings, she reportedly raked in some $3 million per year in net income.
Would that payday have come had she just been a really good track star and not an all-time great?
"In this business," said San Francisco Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper, a former major leaguer, "if you have one good year at the right time, you can set yourself up pretty well for three or four years. And that's an unbelievable carrot that is dangled in front of players, and it's dangled there for years."
But why is the big payday the goal? Why is success and fortune so important that people are willing to take drugs and risk doing jail time and destroying their reputations?
Winning trumps honesty
Many say sports merely mirror society, and the real world is filled with even more cheating, lying, back-stabbing and dishonesty. From Enron to Martha Stewart. From the voting fiasco of the 2004 presidential elections to the Jason Blair saga. News is dominated with people compromising ethics for economics.
"We've changed as a culture, as a society," said Sammy Jones, co-minister at the Church of Christ in Berkeley who went to Castlemont High School in Oakland with baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. "We've changed our thinking from honesty is the best policy to getting ahead is the best policy, achieving the goal is the best policy. That mind-set permeates our whole system.
"Our government led us in that direction. Our religious leaders have led us in that direction. Our mothers and fathers have led us in that direction. It's in the psyche of American existence. In every area of our lives, getting ahead is the acceptable norm. If you do it honestly, fine. But if you have to do it — how did Malcolm X say it? 'By any means necessary' — then that's what you do."
A multi-billion dollar business
Fans' continued support of sports in spite of the rampant cheating seems to suggest that the character of society has declined.
For example, baseball has seen an attendance boost in the face of the steroids controversy. Earlier this month, Major League Baseball announced it set attendance records for the fourth consecutive season. This season — which was highlighted by Barry Bonds' controversial breaking of the all-time home run record — saw 79.5 million tickets sold, breaking the previous record by more than 3 million.
Pro football, despite the many off-the-field transgressions by NFL players, is still easily the most popular sport in the United States. The NCAA landed a billion-dollar television deal with CBS for its basketball tournament despite disturbing graduation rates, all-too-common academic scandals and regular recruiting violations.
Fans could be considered co-conspirators because of their loyalty.
"At the end of the day, the fans are there to watch a good performance," Rhodius said. "You enjoy watching the performances, and maybe you turn a blind eye. If we didn't buy all the photographs of the celebrities, then there wouldn't be paparazzi. But because we pay the money to go, people are going to keep pushing and pushing. So maybe society does need to take a stand."
What does all this tell the young athletes cutting their teeth in today's sports climate? If professional athletes are their role models, they are soaking up some crazy stuff.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, steroid use among high school students doubled from 1991 to 2003. Fake addresses and doctored birth certificates are common practices in youth and high school sports. Athletes who become stars at a young age are readily accepting the perks that come with their status — easy "A's" in class, free passes for wrongdoing, handouts and bribes.
Today's amateur athletes are clearly affected, from junior high school to college, by the mentality of today's athletes and fans.
Take Kuiper, for example. He likes to tell the story of when his son started playing baseball. The coaches pitched to the batters. No score or statistics were kept, at least not officially.
"But you had 12 parents on one side keeping score and 12 parents on the other side keeping score," Kuiper said. "In all honesty, we can't help ourselves. It's American. You keep score. There's a winner and a loser. You're going to do what you can to try to win, and you just hope that whatever rules you break, whatever boundaries you cross, aren't something that after you get through playing you regret.
"So much of this has become exposed at the professional level that I think a lot of amateur athletes feel like they need to or should try to do the same thing. It's only natural that they would."
It's a thin line
It's to the point where cheating is hard even to define. Phrases such as "gamesmanship" and "cagey" are sometimes euphemisms for rule breaking. Some forms of dishonesty are lauded as necessary effort.
The rules themselves aren't necessarily the barometer for determining whether one is cheating, but the circumstances for breaking the rules are. Deceitfulness isn't determined by the absence of truth but by the rationale behind the deception.
Depending on whom you ask, cheating becomes cheating at different points.
Warriors forward Al Harrington admitted he cheats all the time in non-basketball games, especially playing cards. But not on the hardwood. Sure, he'll lock an arm, tug a jersey, embellish a foul.
"But that's not cheating, because we all do it," he said. "I wouldn't use the word 'cheating.' Guys who want to win, truly want to win, a lot of times are willing to do anything. You don't want to sell your soul. It's not that serious. But if you can get an edge, why not?"
So, the question begs: What is cheating? If an outfielder traps a ball in the grass and rises up with the ball acting as if he caught it, is that cheating?
What about a wide receiver getting free from a defensive back with an undetected push-off? What about a cyclist taking human growth hormone that he knows competitors use? What about a high school football player who uses his aunt's address to enroll at the football powerhouse? What about the athlete who chooses to play college ball at the school whose booster gave him a summer job? What about the soccer player who exaggerates his injury or the basketball player who flops to draw a charge?
The answers are as varied as the questions. According to Rhodius, research shows that there is a continuum of where people draw the line. Each person has his or her own standard of what is ethical.
"Everything's a moral decision," Rhodius said. "Whether you realize it or not, you're making a moral decision. It's a gray area, and that line sometimes shifts. That's why we have rules. Without rules, there's chaos. If you stick by the rules, you'll never cheat."
Well, you know what they say these days. Rules are made to be broken.
Somewhere along the way in our culture, it became OK to sin for a win
By Marcus Thompson II, STAFF WRITER
Cheaters never prosper.
It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.
Honesty is the best policy.
There was a time when such cliches were emphasized in sports as metaphors for life, when the love of pure competition was the sole motivation, when athletes were celebrated as much for their character as their talent. Those days appear long gone, based on the state of sports today.
Fair play has taken a back seat — and maybe even rides in the trunk — as athletes are consumed with finding an edge.
As a result, the old adages have been replaced. Different catch phrases serve as tenets for a culture fueled by greed and governed by the bottom line.
It's only cheating if you get caught.
Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.
If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
In the world of sports, the ends — success, fame, fortune — justify the means. Cheating has long been part of competition. And today's sports figures seem more willing than ever to go beyond the boundsof fair play.
Cheating has reached new heights. Rather, new lows.
"Cheating has always existed and always will," said Alison Rhodius, who has been a sports psychologist for 14 years, the past seven as research director for sports psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill. "And it's not just in sports. It's across the board. These things happen in business, too. People push the lines and try to do more and more. Maybe it is a reflection of the way that this society has gone."
If it is a reflection, it is being mirrored in nearly every arena of sports, carried out by athletes, referees, coaches and owners.
NBA official Tim Donaghy confessed to betting on NBA games in which he officiated. He also gave insider tips to his bookies, who reportedly were mob-affiliated. His career is now over, and the NBA, one of the world's most popular leagues, is suffering from a public relations nightmare.
New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was caught Sept.9 having the New York Jets' defensive signals videotaped, which is in direct violation of NFL rules. The fallout revealed that Belichick has reportedly become somewhat of a master spy, which raises questions about how he became the NFL's best coach.
In July, a 780-page technical dossier on Ferrari cars was found at the home of rival Formula One team McLaren's chief designer, Mike Coughlan, who later was suspended. The McLaren team was fined $100 million by the World Motor Sport Council and stripped of its points. Disgruntled Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney, who allegedly supplied Coughlan the documents, was fired.
In September, Florida State announced that 23 athletes from nine sports, 17 of whom were on scholarship, were involved in a scandal in which an athletic department learning specialist provided test answers and wrote papers for students.
Track superstar Marion Jones, after years of vehement denials, confessed earlier this month to doping and handed over the five Olympic medals she won in the 2000 Summer Games. Her legendary career and once-stellar reputation is now forever tarnished.
The list goes on and on.
Not a recent trend
Sure, cheating is nothing new. The 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal is an infamous story of bribery. Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding will forever be remembered for hiring a goon to attack her competition, Nancy Kerrigan, in 1994. Rosie Ruiz won the 1980 Boston Marathon while barely breaking a sweat by jumping into the race for only the last half-mile. She qualified with a good showing in the New York Marathon, which she completed mostly on the subway.
The use of performance-enhancing drugs goes back a ways, too. Amphetamines ("greenies") were all the rage back in the day for an extra boost. Synthetic male hormones were the performance enhancer of choice in the 1960s and'70s, especially involving Olympic sports.
Still, today's cheating appears much more widespread and extreme. From performance-enhancing drugs, to corked bats, to spying, to academic fraud, to illegal recruiting tactics — people in sports seem willing to do anything these days.
"Somebody told me that you have to cheat to win," Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha said. "I don't think that's true, but that is some people's mentality. I don't agree. I think you can be as successful doing it the right way, and a lot of people feel that way."
Risk to reward ratio
One of the obvious reasons people cheat is for the payoff. Sports stars these days are so well compensated that many consider the reward to be worth the risk.
Winning brings a huge payday. Big contracts, endorsement deals and global fame await the athletes who can do the extraordinary. An extra lucrative deal awaits those who can perform at a high level a few years longer. A steady salary awaits the amateur or low-level player who can make it to the top ranks.
Take Jones, for example. She is a superb athlete by any standard. But she wasn't a global star until the summer of 2000, when she claimed five medals (three gold) in the Sydney Olympics. As a result, she became a household face. She signed endorsement deals with Nike, Oakley, TAG Heuer and American Express. With her endorsements, appearance fees and track earnings, she reportedly raked in some $3 million per year in net income.
Would that payday have come had she just been a really good track star and not an all-time great?
"In this business," said San Francisco Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper, a former major leaguer, "if you have one good year at the right time, you can set yourself up pretty well for three or four years. And that's an unbelievable carrot that is dangled in front of players, and it's dangled there for years."
But why is the big payday the goal? Why is success and fortune so important that people are willing to take drugs and risk doing jail time and destroying their reputations?
Winning trumps honesty
Many say sports merely mirror society, and the real world is filled with even more cheating, lying, back-stabbing and dishonesty. From Enron to Martha Stewart. From the voting fiasco of the 2004 presidential elections to the Jason Blair saga. News is dominated with people compromising ethics for economics.
"We've changed as a culture, as a society," said Sammy Jones, co-minister at the Church of Christ in Berkeley who went to Castlemont High School in Oakland with baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. "We've changed our thinking from honesty is the best policy to getting ahead is the best policy, achieving the goal is the best policy. That mind-set permeates our whole system.
"Our government led us in that direction. Our religious leaders have led us in that direction. Our mothers and fathers have led us in that direction. It's in the psyche of American existence. In every area of our lives, getting ahead is the acceptable norm. If you do it honestly, fine. But if you have to do it — how did Malcolm X say it? 'By any means necessary' — then that's what you do."
A multi-billion dollar business
Fans' continued support of sports in spite of the rampant cheating seems to suggest that the character of society has declined.
For example, baseball has seen an attendance boost in the face of the steroids controversy. Earlier this month, Major League Baseball announced it set attendance records for the fourth consecutive season. This season — which was highlighted by Barry Bonds' controversial breaking of the all-time home run record — saw 79.5 million tickets sold, breaking the previous record by more than 3 million.
Pro football, despite the many off-the-field transgressions by NFL players, is still easily the most popular sport in the United States. The NCAA landed a billion-dollar television deal with CBS for its basketball tournament despite disturbing graduation rates, all-too-common academic scandals and regular recruiting violations.
Fans could be considered co-conspirators because of their loyalty.
"At the end of the day, the fans are there to watch a good performance," Rhodius said. "You enjoy watching the performances, and maybe you turn a blind eye. If we didn't buy all the photographs of the celebrities, then there wouldn't be paparazzi. But because we pay the money to go, people are going to keep pushing and pushing. So maybe society does need to take a stand."
What does all this tell the young athletes cutting their teeth in today's sports climate? If professional athletes are their role models, they are soaking up some crazy stuff.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, steroid use among high school students doubled from 1991 to 2003. Fake addresses and doctored birth certificates are common practices in youth and high school sports. Athletes who become stars at a young age are readily accepting the perks that come with their status — easy "A's" in class, free passes for wrongdoing, handouts and bribes.
Today's amateur athletes are clearly affected, from junior high school to college, by the mentality of today's athletes and fans.
Take Kuiper, for example. He likes to tell the story of when his son started playing baseball. The coaches pitched to the batters. No score or statistics were kept, at least not officially.
"But you had 12 parents on one side keeping score and 12 parents on the other side keeping score," Kuiper said. "In all honesty, we can't help ourselves. It's American. You keep score. There's a winner and a loser. You're going to do what you can to try to win, and you just hope that whatever rules you break, whatever boundaries you cross, aren't something that after you get through playing you regret.
"So much of this has become exposed at the professional level that I think a lot of amateur athletes feel like they need to or should try to do the same thing. It's only natural that they would."
It's a thin line
It's to the point where cheating is hard even to define. Phrases such as "gamesmanship" and "cagey" are sometimes euphemisms for rule breaking. Some forms of dishonesty are lauded as necessary effort.
The rules themselves aren't necessarily the barometer for determining whether one is cheating, but the circumstances for breaking the rules are. Deceitfulness isn't determined by the absence of truth but by the rationale behind the deception.
Depending on whom you ask, cheating becomes cheating at different points.
Warriors forward Al Harrington admitted he cheats all the time in non-basketball games, especially playing cards. But not on the hardwood. Sure, he'll lock an arm, tug a jersey, embellish a foul.
"But that's not cheating, because we all do it," he said. "I wouldn't use the word 'cheating.' Guys who want to win, truly want to win, a lot of times are willing to do anything. You don't want to sell your soul. It's not that serious. But if you can get an edge, why not?"
So, the question begs: What is cheating? If an outfielder traps a ball in the grass and rises up with the ball acting as if he caught it, is that cheating?
What about a wide receiver getting free from a defensive back with an undetected push-off? What about a cyclist taking human growth hormone that he knows competitors use? What about a high school football player who uses his aunt's address to enroll at the football powerhouse? What about the athlete who chooses to play college ball at the school whose booster gave him a summer job? What about the soccer player who exaggerates his injury or the basketball player who flops to draw a charge?
The answers are as varied as the questions. According to Rhodius, research shows that there is a continuum of where people draw the line. Each person has his or her own standard of what is ethical.
"Everything's a moral decision," Rhodius said. "Whether you realize it or not, you're making a moral decision. It's a gray area, and that line sometimes shifts. That's why we have rules. Without rules, there's chaos. If you stick by the rules, you'll never cheat."
Well, you know what they say these days. Rules are made to be broken.