Ostensibly, they are about sports. About fun and games. About life’s relatively insignificant diversions.
And yet, they are about much more.
You see, the headlines of the past week have touched upon integrity and honesty and competition. Upon rules and compliance. Upon character, which is the preferred catchphrase for how we overcome our all-too-human foibles and frailties. And along the way, the issues have illuminated our inadequate societal efforts to reconcile all of those traits.
To start with, the National Football League released a 243-page report resulting from an investigation into deflated footballs during the New England Patriots’ 45-7 playoff victory in January over the Indianapolis Colts. Why 243 pages were required to discuss a few pounds of air pressure is unclear, but, hey, this NFL stuff is big business. Anyway, the report declared that “it is more probable than not” that Patriots quarterback and Golden Boy Tom Brady was “at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities.”
OK, OK, so that wouldn’t exactly stand up in a court of law, but it has been enough to leave the talking heads breathless for the better part of a week. It has been enough to question whether Brady’s legacy — which earns him the title of the greatest quarterback in NFL history — has been tainted. And it might be enough to see the league suspend him for much of next season.
Not that “Deflategate” was the only morality play on display. Because there was Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, who hit the 661st home run of his major-league career to pass Willie Mays for fourth place on the all-time list. Rodriguez has been sanctioned multiple times during his career for the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and was suspended for the entire 2014 season. Yet now his name is being mentioned alongside the icons of the game.
And finally, at Camas High School, there was football coach Jon Eagle being suspended by the school’s athletic league for the first four games of the 2015 season for allegedly recruiting an athlete from another school. Details remain sketchy — and, at this point, flimsy — and Camas officials said they will appeal the decision. But the case also brings up pertinent questions that reach beyond the sports world.
Do cheaters prosper?
Now, Tom Brady, Jon Eagle and Alex Rodriguez might have little in common aside from the fact that only one of them has a master’s degree, and the guess here is this is the first time those three names have ever appeared together in a paragraph. Yet the stories of the past week carry a common thread of raising questions about our societal obsession with sports and with our notion of fair play and “cheating,” which Mr. Webster tells us means “to break a rule or law usually to gain an advantage at something.”
This is particularly relevant in the zero-sum world of sports, where each winner begets a loser and where an old and offensive canard exists that “if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.” How this philosophy applies when it comes to, say, paying your taxes or to your relationship with your wife is not clear, and yet it persists. More important, it highlights the fact that not all cheating is created equal.
That is the problem inherent in the outrage generated by last week’s headlines. Brady might or might not have played a role in deflating footballs after they were inspected by game officials, and yet his team won 45-7 and later won its fourth Super Bowl (note to the NFL: It’s time to stop having the teams use their own footballs in a game). Rodriguez has a long history of childlike petulance and bald-faced lying that has made him one of the most unpopular figures in sports. Eagle, according to all accounts and my personal dealings with him, is a man of integrity facing paper-thin allegations.
But I come here not to defend nor to bury Jon Eagle. Instead, I come to ponder the notion of playing by the rules and believing in fairness. And to long for the day when cheaters never prosper.
