A Sporting View

Marion Jones, It's Possible It Hurts Us Even More

Marion Jones announced to the world that she had indeed been using performance-enhancing drugs and that doing so made it possible for her to have a significant advantage over other athletes.

Yes, she'll most likely lose her three gold medals and her two bronze medals from the 2000 Sydney Olympics. And yes, she'll most likely be stripped of other medals (World Championships 2001). And she's probably going to spend some time in jail. From what we're told, she's broke and will be facing fines in addition to prison time.

So, Marion, this is definitely a major, major fall from grace. You were once the world's most admired female athlete. And now, you face a very uncertain and rough future.

But with all of that's ahead for you, Marion, it is possible it hurts us even more. Why? Because we BELIEVE in the integrity of sports. At least we try very hard to. There are millions of people who deeply respect the spirit of competition that is the Olympics. When we find out that someone of your calibre competed with an unfair advantage and that you asserted for years that you were an honest and ethical competitor, and then you admit to us that you had been lying all along...well, the impact this has is enormous. It affects millions of people.

You must fully consider the impact you have had on the world of sports. And you must realize that a tear-filled apoloy, no matter how sincere, will not make up the damage you've caused. Factually, you CAN make up the damage, Marion, but it will start with an unselfish recognition of the impact you've had on others and then devising realistic things you can DO that will, in some way, improve the integrity of sports. You can do this. You can figure this out.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. You, me and the rest of the sporting world are not in the same boat as Marion Jones. And truth be known, we do NOT have to lower our viewpoint of sports simply because a famous athlete or two (or more) have gone awry. We can conclude that people on this planet are flawed and this shows up in every area of life, sports included. Okay, I'm not so bummed out by what you did, Marion, and I hope you make a complete recovery for yourself and for your fans.

A Legitimate Solution to the Steroids Problem

Recently I wrote a letter to the Commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig. I sent a copy of the letter to Don Fehr, the Executive Director of the Baseball Players Union. I also sent a copy to various media points.

In this letter, I give a real and legitimate solution to baseball's steroid problem, a problem that is also prevalent in other sports and apparently at all levels (college, high school, even earlier). If you would like to see this letter, click the link to continue reading this post...

Bill Belichick's Press Conference

Commissioner Goodell fined Bill Belechick a half a million dollars. He fined the Patriots a quarter mill and the loss of one or two future draft picks. After this came down, Bill Belechick held a "press conference."

He must've said 20 or more times, "it's in the past." He batted back every question on the subject with the response: "it's in the past. We've been fined. It's over with." All he would talk about is the next game, the next team.

Well, Bill, there are thousands of Patriot fans and hundreds of thousands of fans around the country who respect what you've accomplished FOR WHOM IT IS NOT IN THE PAST. For this sizeable group of people, it is very much still in the present.

Some of us would like to know:

1) What exactly did you do?

2) How long have you've been doing it?

3) How has it benefited your team?

One of the biggest problems with the steroid situation is the MYSTERY it creates for millions of sports fans. I, for one, would like to know:

Who took what?

How did it benefit them?

How many revered baseball records have been tarnished?

Did the use of performance enhancing drugs affect who made (or didn't make) the playoffs?

Did it affect the World Series?

If you're writing a suspense novel, then I'm all for a good mystery. But not knowing how your sport has been negatively impacted by unethical conduct, well, that's not a mystery any of us enjoy.

In my next post, I'll provide a copy of a letter I sent to Commission Bud Selig that offered a way out of the whole steroid scene. And a way to end the mystery in a way that would benefit everyone.

For now and for this post, I simply want to tell Bill Belechick this: I guess you have the right to withhold from the public what you did, but many of us out here do not appreciate that stance. Watching your players circle the wagons or knowing some of your closest fans have a deaf ear to what you did — well, that doesn't cut it for the vast majority of us out here.

We care about sports well beyond the mega amounts of money involved. And we'd like to have a bit of truth now and then to dispel the clouds of suspicion and mystery that can degrade the respect and enjoyment of the game.