SportsNetUSA Blogs

Black History month is here and, for many of you that have listened to us on SportsNetUSA.net and to Friday Nite Mics, you have heard us discuss the plight of black athletes and coaches on a variety of topics. We have discussed Negro baseball and have wondered out loud how good some of the old Hall of Famers would have been in baseball if they would have had to face every athlete of their time. If we go back in time we have wondered how many NCAA Championships would have been won by certain teams if segregation had not been the law of the land. We still wonder about golf (country club) policies across this country that, in 2010, some clubs are still closed to people of color.

As for coaches of color, no one has hollered louder than TitleIX and the Buddha of Babble about equality in the coaching ranks for college and professional teams. So to all of the great athletes of our time, the ones from the past and to those of you in the future, we throw in our thoughts and the thoughts of others on Black History Month:

Here’s a link to “Top 75 Althletes and Pioneers of Sports Inclusion” an article written by Leland Stien III originally published by the Los Angeles Sentinel.  http://www.afrogolf.com/top75blackathletes.html

Amazing one of my counter parts at SportsNetUSA.net made a statement in a blog that rules are not fair. He also stated that life isn’t fair and then proceeded to tell those individuals who are mistreated by collegiate rules to suck it up.

So my big question would be, “would he tell Tiger and Paddy to suck it up, rules and life aren’t fair and just play on …?”, most likely not. Then again, why would he? We don’t always play by the rules when we are on the golf course.

So what do rules really mean today? Well by dictionary standards the word rule is just stated as jurisdiction, regulation, edict, order, not pick and choose what fits your needs during a competition.

You see I am quite confused listening to sporting fans all over the country. If it is okay to cheat, to break the rules, then this means Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff shouldn’t be vilified. They were simply taking every advantage so they could to get ahead.

This means you shouldn’t be angry at Wall Street fat cats. And when your loans come due on your home don’t even try to be upset about mortgage lenders. No whining about republicans, democrats or independents taking money from lobbyists. Stop complaining about all the CEO’s and numerous types of fraud. Get comfortable with colleagues sleeping their way to the top.

These people are all just trying to gain an extra advantage, so what if they bent this rule or that rule. They were all just doing for the great mighty dollar.

If you accept cheating in sports, you accept it everywhere. You abdicate your outrage and muddy your ethical discernment. So spare me the ‘hypocritical’ tripe.

In retrospect, most in-game cheating is viewed with a tip of the hat, a nod — even a chuckle. TitleIX and The Franchise can laugh about espionage in their beloved sports. Spitball pitchers and steroid users are considered a colorful part of the game. Same with floppers in basketball, stick benders in hockey, divers in soccer and football players who specialize in holding.

Yes you fans have always talked a good game about wanting our athletes to be fair and honorable. You grew up believing in the world of sports, and in the premise of trying to compete the right way. Winners never cheat, and cheaters never win. But somewhere you, the preachers of the rules, got lost in your own convoluted game; “rules should be for everyone but not necessarily for the team I root for, at least not today.”

So sports fans please do me a favor and pick a side, watch the game with a rulebook sitting next to you and choose which rules apply to that game you are watching that day and stick by them for both teams. If you are that fan that is looking at the real world and how all the outside influences effects all athletes, high school, college, pro, take a hard look at yourself. Ask yourself if you were put in the same positions as some of your favorite athletes, not so favorite athletes, young, old or indifferent, what would you do? Would you live and die by the rules, or would you break the rules for your own benefit or the benefit of your team? Make a choice, and when you do, realize it should be a choice that would be acceptable to everyone ….be it cheating, then it’s cheating, if not, then it’s not, but what is fair for one is fair for all. Rules are rules.

WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITES CHEATERS ESPECIALLY THOSE YOU TURNED A BLIND EYES TO, these might start your mind thinking:

1. Danny Almonte: Anyone who watched the 2001 Little League World Series will recall the way Almonte dominated the international competition, whiffing guys over and over with unprecedented heat. We overlooked the fact that he pretty much had a mustache and instead focused on that rocket arm…until about a week after the Series when SI let us all know that Almonte was actually 14 years old.

2. The 2000 Spanish Paralympics Team: This story never got much attention, but it’s pretty outrageous. At the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, the team from Spain cleaned up, winning several gold medals including a blow-out of Russia in the gold medal basketball game. Unfortunately, it turned out many of the team members weren’t actually disabled at all. Perhaps having Johnny Knoxville starting at shooting guard should have tipped us off.

3. Rosie Ruiz: Just 23 years old at the time, Ruiz won the women’s division of the 1980 Boston Marathon in a scorching time of just over two and half hours. This was surprising to pretty much everyone involved with the Boston Marathon, as nobody had seen her running until the final mile. As it turned out, this was because she only ran the final half-mile.

4. Joe Niekro: This was probably my favorite cheating scandal of all time, just because it happened so publicly. After being a dominant pitcher in the late ’70s — he finished second in the 1979 Cy Young voting — Niekro’s career was on the downside in 1987. While pitching for the Minnesota Twins, Niekro was accused of doctoring the baseball. The umps came to the mound, checked his glove and then asked him to empty his pockets.

5. Ben Johnson: During the 1988 Summer Olympics, I was caught up in the hysteria, cheering hard for the American athletes to do their best. I was a particularly big fan of Carl Lewis, who seemed to be able to run and jump past everyone else involved. Then, in the 100 meter finals, a buff Canadian named Ben Johnson sprinted past everyone to win the title and set a world record. Then he peed in a cup and everything changed. He now has a clothing line with the motto “Catch Me.” They already did, Ben.

Nike’s much ballyhooed and equally lambasted SQ Sumo2 driver ($480) is leading the charge into the engineering breach, pushing the limits of golf equipment. This behemoth club’s size (460c), shape (square) and moment of inertia (or MOI; nearing 5,900 g-cm2) are all pushing the USGA’s specified limits on design.

WOW, the world of technology, the advancement of sports, bigger, better, faster. Yet does one ever wonder if it is technology that makes the athlete better or has the athlete become so good that no matter what the level of the technology he would be superior to the athletes of yesteryear?

Just think of playing football in the 1960’s, Sam Huff, Jim Brown both wearing flak jackets and the latest GPS device that measures impact on a tackle. I am sure they would get up after a rough and tumble play and start conversing about the numbers on their impact meters and how the levels exceed suggested impact levels on a open field tackle.

The talk during this last Wimbledon was how the better players in the world were reducing the size of their rackets. They were scaling back down to the days of Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe. Even John McEnroe has said on numerous occasions he would love to see players have to go back to the same standard size rackets that he, Connors, Laver and others in the past had to play with on a competitive level.

At our last U.S. Open in golf many questioned not the difficulty of the golf course, but the fact that the majority of professional golfers can no longer hit a 1, 2, or 3 iron if they had to save their lives. Tiger, Jack, Arnold and especially Gary Player have suggested that the USGA needs to look at where technology is taking the game of golf.

As for the great National past time, people decided to use technology, it was called medical technology (steroids) and for some reason the sport of baseball turned their back on this technology after a period of time. Many believe that this technology was delivering a cluttered message that said “how do you look at a participant in a sport and compare them to the hero’s of the past if there is not somewhat of a level playing field for comparisons.”

Yes, sport after sport accepts technology to hopefully keep the game as entertaining as it was in the past. Plus the sporting world not only wants us as viewers of athletes on the world stage, but they also want us to feel as if we could play on the world stage. So advanced technology may not be so much for the games we view as it is for what we will buy to participate.

Does that mean I am against technology for safety reason? No ….nobody wants to see an athlete get hurt. But I do not want it used to mislead our attitudes about good athletes, not great athletes. You see I came from a sports era where every quarterback could be tackled, pitchers could brush back a hitter, tennis players could play at the net and golfers needed to know how to use every club in the bag.

Remember technology is a system that provides its members with those things desired not necessarily needed.