By MARK VINSON
It isn’t easy being a sports fan these days.
After all, you pour your heart and soul into rooting for your favorite teams and athletes, and what do you get in return?
In the old days, it was simply the agony of defeat, those last-minute rallies that fell short, the late leads that got away. Forever wondering what might have been. In hindsight, those do seem like the good ol’ days.
This year may well be remembered as The Year of the Cheater.
When the Associated Press released its annual list of the year’s top stories — as voted on by writers and broadcasters — this week, nine of the top 11 were stories about various misdeeds: from dogfighting to steroid use to gambling referees to coaches who spy on opposing teams.
As one who earns a living by pouring over mountains of sports news and attempting to distill it into readable copy for an increasingly busy audience, too often I find our headlines dominated by cheaters and criminals. And I ask myself, “Is this what our audience really wants to read?”
It’s the same question my colleagues on the news desk grapple with in a world filled with war, poverty, injustice and tragedy. We report it because it is news, because you the reader have a right to know.
But, truth be told, it’s the unpleasant side of the job.
Take, for example, the events of the past couple of weeks:
Two weeks ago, a former Pro Bowl quarterback was sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison for his involvement in an activity that has been described as “inhumane.”
Two days later, a former Olympic champion’s name was forever erased from the history books, the memory of her photogenic smile on the victory stand long since replaced by images of a tear-stained apology on the steps of a courthouse where she admitted to, among other things, lying and cheating.
Then came last Thursday and a voluminous report that black-listed some of the greatest Major League Baseball players of our generations as flat-out cheaters. To say that we knew it all along does little to sooth the slap in the face that the Mitchell Report delivered.
And then, just Saturday, comes the news that roughly two dozen Florida State football players won’t be going to the Music City Bowl because of academic cheating.
Together, it’s enough to make one throw in the towel, take up bingo or some other less-emotionally taxing pursuit.
If there’s a moral in all of this for this journalist, it is this: These men and women whom we have come to honor and adore are no more special than the rest of us. Former NBA all-star Charles Barkley once declared “I’m not a role model.” And he was right.
It’s all fine and good to buy a ticket and go to the games, to don the jerseys, paint your face and root, root, root for the home team.
But it is at our own peril that we delve too deeply into the private lives of our sporting heroes. The closer we look, the less we like what we see.
Somewhere along the way, we developed the mistaken impression that Michael Vick’s ability to throw a football, that Marion Jones’ ability to run and jump swifter, higher, stronger, that Barry Bonds’ ability to hit a baseball much farther than the rest of us, somehow made them worthy of our adoration.
That myth should pretty well be shattered now and, if it is, then perhaps there may actually be a silver lining to one of the darker years the sporting world has witnessed in quite some time.
Of all the comments I have read over the past couple of days surrounding the Mitchell Report, perhaps the most telling came from Tony Dungy, head coach of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts of the NFL.
“There’s always a push in sports, and probably in life, to get ahead. We’re all naive if we think that things haven’t happened and guys haven’t tried to get ahead in other ways in all sports. I think that’s just human nature.”
Perhaps we, as a society, have raised the stakes so high that far too many feel compelled to cheat. What’s at stake? Only million-dollar contracts, college scholarships, a chance at athletic glory. No wonder people bend the rules to the extent they’ve flat out broken them. All in the name of gaining some sort of competitive advantage.
Sports, at its very core, is about fair competition.
When that premise is disregarded, when no one can tell who’s cheating and who’s not anymore, the game is up.
