The list is really quite long; Roger Clemens and the whole performance-enhancing drug (PED) in baseball scandal, Kelvin Sampson and the University of Indiana, Bill Belichick and the video tape humiliation involving the New England Patriots, and the story surrounding Reggie Bush allegedly receiving illegal benefits while at the University of Southern California. And these are only the recent cheating-based stories.
There have been many other cheating stories over the past few years, whether it was boxing, NASCAR, Formula One, cycling and the Tour de France or NFL players taking human growth hormone, steroids and other PEDs.
Being that this is an Olympics year – the summer games will be held in Beijing – there have been stories discussing the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) pursuit of a better blood test for HGH, as well as other screening tests that can catch drug cheats. As a matter of fact, this has been an on-going story for the past several years, ever since the airing of Major League Baseball’s dirty PED laundry.
So the question really needs to be asked. Are these isolated instances, illustrative of the fact that cheaters get caught, or is everyone – or most people cheating – and do these recent cases represent a minuscule portion of the actual cheating that is going on?
Perhaps it’s time to bury the romantic concept of sport once and for all, and accept that the era of technology, bioengineering and enhanced life is officially here. Of course, old school cheating has always been a part of the story, and can still change the course of competition.
The romantic concept of sport – where athletes competed for the love of the sport – has been dying a slow death for the better part of 4 decades with the advent of free-agency, endorsement deals that pay better than prize winnings and salaries, and the explosion in popularity of sports in general. Events of the past few years have driven a figurative stake through the allegorical heart of the quaint, out-dated notion that is the romantic concept of sport.
For a minute, let’s not even bother with the PED issue and just focus on good old-fashioned cheating of the kind favored by Kelvin Sampson and Bill Belichick. These guys didn’t need cutting-edge science in their quest to get an illegal leg up over their competitors, just standard household technology to violate the rules.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
And even the old notion of "no cheating went on back in the heyday" isn't exactly true - Bobby Thompson's 1951 pennant-clinching home run was aided by a stolen sign. So regarding forgiveness from the general public, it's simply a matter of what the broken rule is, and is the punishment reasonable enough.
2 - alessandro
In 1977 the Montreal Alouettes beat the Edmonton Eskimos in the Grey Cup. It was something like -140c outside. The turf was a sheet of ice in Montreal. To get a grip on the field, players for the Als nailed some staples under their shoes. Result? While the Esks slipped and slided everywhere, the Als made for the endzone in a 41-7 romp.
Was this cheating or just plain being smart? Esks players will tell you cheating I am sure.
And then there was the 1954 World Cup. Easily, Hungary was the single most dominant soccer nation. No one came close. NOBODY.
The game conditions were wretched for the game. Luckily for the Germans, a German shoe manufacturer had come up with the prototype for the modern soccer shoe. The German soccer team bought the shoes and Adidas was born.
When Adidas approached Hungary, the Hungarians said, "Thanks, but we're good."
Result? Germany, after getting thrashed 8-1 against Hungary earlier in the tourney, won the final 3-2 in one of the most improbable victory in World Cup history.
Imagine that, even with the advantage on the pitch on the field, the Germans were still being outclassed by the Hungarians.
This is a case of technology have a direct impact on a game. Of course, it didn't hurt that Hungary didn't have the interest to try out the shoes.
All this being said, something tells me we can come up with hundreds upon hundreds of stories like these in which cheating and technology determined the outcome of a game in sports history.
3 - sal m
was tom cousineau playing on that montreal team?
i'm not sure if your examples are cheating...were there expressed rules against what those teams did?
there's a famous american football game where the ny giants changed from cleats to sneakers in the second half to be able to play on a frozen solid turf. they won the game. that's not cheating, they just changed shoes.
4 - alessandro
Yeah, maybe they were borderline examples but the Esks considered it cheating. They were not "legal" shoes.
The second example was about tech.
I don't think Cousineau was on that team. I think he came in the early 80s for a brief time.