Mike Salsbury’s Blog

Make no mistake about it, the United States is obsessed with
sports.  It may well be one of our biggest industries:

• We have multiple sports networks on television and radio.

• We publish magazines and books about sports, sporting
  events, and athletes.

• We manufacture clothing,
  toys, appliances, food items, and anything else we can think of with
  sports themes, sports team logos, and athletes’ photographs.

• Our state and local governments sponsor the creation of giant
  sports arenas for professional teams to play in.

• People talk about sports on a regular basis.  For many,
  it’s the bulk of their conversations.

• We idolize athletes,
  paying them a lot of money to endorse our products and services.

• Athletes get scholarships to college, stipends and
  other compensation while in college, and special treatment by teachers,
  professors, and others.

• We create video games to
  simulate playing and coaching sporting events.

• There is an entire industry of “fantasy” sports
  leagues for sports fans to engage in.

• People can
  bet on various aspects of sporting events and sports-related activities,
  legally and illegally.

That’s just what I came up
with quickly off the top of my head.  On the one hand, it can be
argued that this is all just harmless fun.  No one is
“required” to participate in or watch sports.  Some
athletes contribute time and money to worthwhile causes.  Sports
teams bring lots of money into local economies and/or schools. 
It’s entertainment.  Where’s the harm?

Let’s think about that for a moment. Is there a dark side to
sports?  Does the “institution” of athletics really do
any harm to our society?  Is our obsession with sports merely
harmless fun or is there more to it?

On a personal note, I
attended Syracuse University for a couple of years back in the late
1980s.  During that time, I saw very clear evidence that the school
treated athletes very differently from the rest of us.  At least
two of my classes included Syracuse football and basketball team
members.  Never once did I see any of them actually attend the
class.  They showed up for the tests, but I never saw them in
class.  During one test, the proctors conveniently looked the other
way while football players stood up, looked over other people’s
shoulders, and even asked OUT LOUD “What did you get for number
6?” and so forth.  Magically, this blatant cheating was never
caught. 

In another class, a basketball
star (who later went pro with the New Jersey Nets as a center and last
played in the 98-99 season) never attended his astronomy classes (I
know, because I never missed one!) and showed up only for the final
exam.  When he arrived at the classroom, he ripped a folder full of
pre-printed tests out of another student’s hand, took one with someone
else’s name printed on it, stomped to the end of the row, and sat on the
steps (even though we’d all been told to sit in seats at least 1-2
spaces apart from one another).  When the person whose test this
star was working on realized the mix-up and confronted him, the star got
very belligerent and aggressive with him.  Eventually, the proctors
did step in and sort it out.  I can’t say this guy cheated, but he
got special treatment and although he was never in class he somehow
managed to get a B (and it took him about 15 minutes to take his test,
when it took others close to an hour).  I don’t think the guy was a
genius, and he couldn’t have gotten it all from the book because most of
the test questions came from in-class lectures.  I have no evidence
to back this up, but I think he was “fed” the answers. 
After all, we needed his grades to stay up so he could play
basketball…right? 

Miraculously, too,
these guys managed to be able to afford to drive expensive new cars,
live in off-campus apartments (even though the rules stated that
freshmen couldn’t do that, it seemed not to apply to athletes), and have
plenty of spending money.  How that happens when your parents
aren’t exactly rich, I don’t know.  Personally, I believe they get
handed money under the table (or maybe it just “shows up”
anonymously in packets on their doorstep).  Regardless, even if
there was nothing illegal or unethical going on at Syracuse in those
days, the message to other students was clear:  You’re not as
important to us as the athletes.  No one gave me a car to drive
when I was there.  I wasn’t allowed to cheat on tests.  I
didn’t get to pick where I sat when instructors assigned our
seats.  I didn’t live in an off-campus apartment.  I couldn’t
have afforded it.  What little spending money I had didn’t come
from athletic boosters or anyone else.  It came from my family, who
scrimped and sacrificed to get me there. 

High School Sports Not Immune

 
This happened in high school, too.  I had an
algebra class filled with our school’s sports elite.  When they had
trouble “getting” a concept, the entire class was slowed down
so they could keep up.  They soon learned that by pretending to not
“get it” they could fool a teacher into proceeding through
material at a snail’s pace.  It kept the tests easier and helped
them stay on the team.  I know this is what happened because some
of them told me they were intentionally doing it.  As a result, my
own education in higher mathematics was stunted.  That’s part of
the reason I had to leave Syracuse after two years.  I couldn’t
hack all the math they wanted me to take.  While I bear at least a
good share of the responsibility, I’m confident my high school’s sports
stars do as well.

What do I mean?  Consider this, that
basketball player I mentioned above appears to have left the game in
1999.  If you read his bio on wikipedia, he set a
few records for the Miami Heat but nothing for the league in
general.  He hosts an annual golf tournament for cystic
fibrosis.  He apparently is now a “real estate
investor”.  As near as I can tell, his attitude from the
Syracuse days lives on.  In an article from
the Miami Herald about his divorce, his wife’s attorney describes
him with phrases like “outrageous and mean-spirited” and as
having “callous indifference for his wife’s feelings”. 
Yeah, that sounds like the guy I remember from Astronomy class. 
And we’re supposed to idolize him?  Please.

Personal anecdotes
aside, let’s look at a recent sports story from right here in my own
backyard of Central Ohio.  A few years ago, everyone loved the Ohio
State University running back Maurice Clarett.  It was expected
that he’d go professional after he graduated.  In sports star
terms, the young man had a very bright future.  Then, it
was alleged that he had accepted thousands of dollars in improper
gifts and that he had lied to NCAA investigators.  Ohio State was
disgraced by the scandal and suspended Clarett.  He could have kept
his nose clean and returned to the team a year later.  A few days
later, he was charged
with “misdemeanor falsification” for lying to police about
items that were stolen from his car (presumably in an effort to collect
more insurance money for them).  Amazingly, he still made an
attempt to get himself drafted into the NFL earlier than normal and sued
the league for the privilege to be drafted.  The Denver Broncos took a
chance on him in April 2005 as a third-round pick.  By
accepting the position, he made himself ineligible to return to Ohio
State. When the Broncos dropped him four months later, this was probably
the low point in his career.  He couldn’t play college ball
anymore, couldn’t cut it in the professional league, and now was faced
with the prospect of no college education and no employment. 
Unfortunately, instead of bucking up and going back to school, getting
his life on track, Clarett allegedly took a step down the wrong path by
robbing
two people at gunpoint recently.  He currently faces a maximum
of 20 years in prison for aggravated robbery.  It’s a sad chain
of events.  His actions aren’t those of a “hero” but
those of a greedy young man trying to use his meager talents to grab up
all the free goods and cash he can get.  They don’t show maturity,
respect for authority, or a desire to do the right thing.  While
common folklore around central Ohio says that he got bad advice from
those around him, I believe in personal responsibility for your
actions.  If someone advised me to commit armed robbery or sue a
potential employer, I would stop seeking that person’s advice.  If
Clarett listened to such advice, he may well be getting what he
deserves.  But I remind you, this is the sort of human being that
we, as a society in general, are choosing to idolize.  It’s no
wonder our nation has problems.

Maurice Clarett is hardly the only sports figure whose
actions are, shall we say, less than ideal.  Sports history is
replete with examples of unsavory people living lavish lifestyles
without regard for life, law, or property:

• Jeff
  Reardon, a former Montreal Expos baseball player, was arrested
  for armed robbery in late 2005.
• Former Dallas Cowboys wide
  receiver Michael Irvin was arrested
  for possession of drug paraphernalia in November 2005, and had been
  arrested for possession of cocaine in 1996.
• L.A. Lakers star
  Kobe Bryant was arrested in
  2003 for sexual assault.
• Wisconsin Badgers running back
  Booker Stanley was arrested in
  2005 on charges that he beat and choked his girlfriend.  The
  previous May he had been arrested for getting into a fight at a block
  party.
• Khalid El-Amin of University of Connecticut, who helped
  the team win its first national championship, was arrested and
  charged with possession of marijuana.
• Larry Johnson of the
  Kansas City Chiefs was charged
  with domestic abuse in September 2005.

Again,
these are just a few quick examples I could find with a Google
search.  One site lists the “Sports Hall of
Shame” which contains dozens of examples of sports stars
committing violence against women (and that list only covers a few
years).  Another lists rapes and sexual
assaults by football athletes on college campuses.  Yeah, these
are people our children should idolize.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know
there are sports stars who use their fame to do good things.  They
speak out against injustices, donate to charities, and do a variety of
other good things.  It seems to me, though, that lately the number
of sports scandals far outweighs the number of good works being
done.  We could easily have better idols and more productive
obsessions than sports.  Unfortunately, I don’t see it happening
any time soon.

For those of you who know me personally and
wonder why I have no interest in sports, perhaps you now see ONE of the
reasons.  I have others, but this is the prevailing thing that
ensures my disinterest in anything sports figures say or do.

I often wonder what would happen to our society
if, for just one week a year, the money we spend on sports-related
things was spent instead on something like housing the homeless, feeding
the hungry, or doing something else of real value. How
many lives would be saved versus the number taken and shattered by the
athletes themselves?

admin Life crime, obsession, sports