I don’t write a lot about sports. I *consume* a lot of sports, especially during football season, but writing about it? Well, I’ve always left that to sportswriters, whose command of history and statistics I always admired.
Until now. Because some of those sportswriters are thinking about the past and not the future.
Last Sunday, the New England Patriots won the 2015 AFC Championship. No big whoop, except that not a day later, allegations of cheating came up. Allegations apparently accurate enough that the league is “distraught.”
This is not new for the Pats, which is unfortunate in itself. Worse is the reaction of some sportswriters and commenters, who have said, “It was a 45-7 blowout. Who cares whether the Patriots cheated?”
Hell, a Slate writer opined America should thank the Patriots for being so bad, like they’re the NFL’s Scarface.
The problem is, while Scarface is ostensibly a piece of adult entertainment, the NFL is hugely influential to college students, to high-school students, to children who play football.
It’s not just a Texas thing. Just ask ESPN’s Gregg Easterbrook: Football is an all-ages sport now, possibly the most played, and what happens in the pros is reflected all the way down. The good and, unfortunately, the bad.
And so you have a league already foundering for its light treatment of spousal and child abuse faced with a winning team that’s made a habit of cheating. You have writers saying, “Who cares? They won.”
You have kids watching, reading, consuming everything about their beloved sport — as I did — and getting the message: cheat, as long as you win.
Cheat. Just win doing it, and you’ll get a pass from the writers and the fans and the league.
Let’s turn that around. Let’s have the Luke O’Neils of the world remember what sportsmanship means. Let’s show the kids playing Pop Warner and the young men representing their universities that you can win without cheating.
Nobody needs to be Scarface. The Patriots have the talent; they certainly don’t need to cheat. And we shouldn’t give them a pass for doing so.
