Cheating in Sports
Tommy Boone
Professor and Chair
Director, Exercise Physiology Laboratories
Department of Exercise Physiology
The College of St. Scholastica
Duluth, MN 55811
“We’ve come to think of deceit
as part of the competitive spirit, so that if you’re not cheating, you’re
not trying.” – Phil Taylor, CNNSI.com
The more I read about cheating in sports and
the use of performance enhancing drugs, the more I’m convinced that the
entire subject smells of “snake oil” or worst. I’m confused about
the lack of commitment to fair play. It’s not that I don’t understand
why people cheat. It’s obvious that if you can’t win at a fair competition,
then cheat. Others cheat because everybody is cheating. At
least, that is what they say. The reality is that the pressure of
failing is too much to deal with. No one wants to be a failure.
How in the world could a person be happy if he or she isn’t winning?
Forget fair competition. Get with the program, or so I’m told.
Good guys are losers!
Much of what I learned from my father centered
on accountability. I was taught that each person is responsible for
giving his or her best and accepting the consequences. You don’t
cheat. Or, if you do, don’t try to rationalize it because others
are doing the same. My father was always a supporter of athletics.
He believed that athletes learned important lessons about life. I
can still remember my father saying, “Tommy, you can do what you set your
mind to do.” I believed him then, and I still do. Athletics
was (and still is) special to me. Yet I don’t follow professional
or even university athletics. I’ve written two gymnastics books [1,2]
and co-authored a book about numerous sports [3]. To me, athletics
is always about what the athlete learns about him- or herself.
I can remember years ago releasing the
parallel bars at exactly the wrong time in an NAIA National Competition.
After getting back on the bars and completing the routine, I never really
thought much about it. I think I know now why it happened.
Later in the competition, I did a high bar routine that (at the time) was
good enough for second team All-American. To this day, I still value
interacting with the athletes and coaches. Thank God, not one coach
in football, track, baseball, or gymnastics ever spoke of using supplements
or drugs to be a better athlete. Some people probably think my feelings
lack reality.
However, I learned some reality from my
father’s stories about himself and his friends that he grew up with.
He was born in 1892. To give you some perspective, I was the first
of five children in his third marriage. He was 52 when I was born.
By age 10 or so, I used to sit and listen to what seemed to be endless
storytelling. Sometimes, the stories got a bit much. But, in
retrospect, I now realize the value of those stories. I remember
my father telling me that he was a principal of a high school at the age
of 16. I even have a picture of him standing among his students and
faculty. His stories and the messages in them are special to me.
He was my coach about life, and he knew a lot of stuff. After my
father graduated from Louisiana State University with three academic degrees,
he practiced law and later became a state senator, only to continue practicing
law until he was 84 years old. Talk about passion for work, fair
play, and ethical thinking: he lived each one.
He taught me a lot of things about growing
up. Perhaps, the most important was his occasional talk about “being
yourself” and “being true to your ideas”. My father taught me to
be an independent thinker and a person who believes in John 3:16 [4].
Faith in Jesus Christ was an integral part of my life as an athlete, and
it still is today. My parents (and Dr. Gary Adams) are responsible
for “The Power Within” book [5] that was written to help people integrate
faith and purposeful self-care. The book is about staying the course
when it would be easier to give in and quit. It is doing what it
takes to get one’s life back on track when otherwise life is driven by
“short cuts” to get the rewards (such as a promotion, a pay increase, or
an athletic medal). Many could learn something from the book [http://www.thepowerwithin.org/].
When I was growing up, I was told that
it is important that you believed in yourself. Of course, that is
as true today as it was then. Now, though, there are many substitutes
for hard work and discipline. Now, it is anybody’s game. If
you have a lot of money, you are not just popular but an important person,
too, regardless of your moral fortitude. If you can “show people
the money,” you can just about do what you please (even break the
law). All of this reminds me of my father’s stories about the snake
oil salesmen. He would tell me to sit down in the chair by his desk,
and he would begin a story. It was his way of sharing a message with
anyone who would listen. He loved to examine you afterwards to see
if you “understood” the story. Of course, most of the time I had
no idea what he was talking about.
Somehow, what he said stayed with me.
I haven’t always been aware of it. Nonetheless, my father is responsible,
in part, for what is in this article. He talked about businessmen
who stole from their clients. So, it doesn’t come as a surprise to
me that all across the United States, there are CEOs stealing the retirement
money of their employees. Stealing is a form of cheating. If
you will steal something, you will cheat as well. Both come from
the same type of thinking in which a person does whatever to get an edge.
We do it almost without hesitation because we have justified it long beforehand.
For example, we say to ourselves, "Everybody is doing it." It is
okay to take sports supplements or drugs to enhance physical performance.
We have convinced ourselves is the truth. Similarly, when we cheat
at work, in marriage, on our taxes, in our friendships, or as an athlete,
it is stealing a vital part of ourselves. We are less because of
it and, therefore, we need to think about it more than we have.
Look at it from Hanson’s [6, p. 1] view:
“College bound students cheat on the SAT tests. Teachers cheat by
giving their students the answers to standardized tests so the teachers
qualify for bonuses. Athletes cheat by using performance enhancing
drugs.” He says we are a nation of cheaters. From corporate
executives manipulating markets, to students copying homework, to adults
falsifying resumes, cheating is part of what we do. Hanson may have
hit the nail on the head when he said: “…we have to ask whether cheating
has become the new national norm.” If that is the case, then he is right
when he says, "we have lost our commitment to integrity and fair play.”
Many individuals believe cheating is wrong. And, when society pats
winners on the back or gives them huge rewards when they are unjustified,
they, too, are cheaters. This is what my father taught me.
Every person (regardless of the pressure to get the job done, regardless
of the likelihood of failure, and regardless of the ability of someone
else) must not get ahead on the backs of others. Winning is important,
but it is not everything. Winning has no importance or value when
realized through cheating. There are no shortcuts. Some of
us will win and some of us will not win. That is life. Athletes
must learn this lesson. They cannot be allowed to cheat, and they
must not be encouraged to cheat. Coaches, athletic trainers, and
sports nutritionists must enforce standards against cheating.
In athletics, it seems there are not any
standards written in stone. Anyone can do anything to win.
Maybe that’s where many of us are today. The worlds of education
and athletics are competitive, and some inhabitants of these worlds believe
they can get away with cheating. And, that is exactly what they are
doing to win. But, when they get caught, their worlds get turned
upside down (at least for a while). Take Mark McGwire and his 1998
home run record, as an example. After it “…was discovered that he
was using androstenedione, a supplement that’s legal in baseball but banned
in other sports, the question became: Who else uses it? Can we trust
any of these guys to play it straight?” [7, p. 3] The
short answer is “no”. Athletics is no longer about fair play.
Why should anyone be impressed when athletes win by cheating? Their
use of banned stimulants, narcotics, anabolic agents, diuretics, and hormones
undermines everything my father taught me about sports. Really, can
anyone place value on the performance of athletes who admit to stuffing
“…a condom filled with ‘clean urine’ up their anus with a rubber tube hidden
by pubic hair to provide an untainted, body temperature urine sample…”
or using “…concentrated forms of caffeine administered as a suppository
just before a race…” [8, p. 1]
Like athletes, the carrot dangling before
some exercise physiologists for more research money is too much for them
to not support the use of sports “dietary” supplements. The important
thing for many is to keep their edge. For them, there is no turning
back. At some point, the tradeoff between ethical thinking [9] and
supplement research will have real human costs. It seems to me that
exercise physiologists, who are advocates of exercise as medicine [10],
should be among the first, if not the first, professionals to consider
constraints on supplement research. If athletics is to have any meaning
in the not too distant future, it must be free from performance enhancing
supplements, drugs, and agents that have far-reaching consequences.
What ethical considerations should exercise physiologists consider to clean
up the cheating in sports? How can the American Society of Exercise
Physiologists (ASEP) create a public awareness of clean sports in the way
other professional societies have done on behalf of their clients (and
overall, for the public good)?
This issue of cheating goes deeper than
most would think. It has both ethical and legal implications.
Like our parents who helped us understand the right and wrong of our actions,
university teachers have a special responsibility to promote the common
good. It is right for me therefore to ask the question: “What effect
would the belief by exercise physiologists that the use of performance-enhancing
supplements and drugs is okay have on the character of athletes?
For example, does this kind of thinking encourage an attitude of fair play
or does it promote the notion that cheating is okay because everyone else
is doing it? University teachers ought to be upholding the notion
that the benefits of fair play must outweigh the short-term glory that
results from cheating. Teachers, especially in this case exercise
physiology teachers, cannot knowingly protect their interests in sports
nutrition and overlook the ethical implications of fair play. The
ethical foundation and reason for sports in our culture must take priority
over the pluralistic views of the researchers.
The bottom line: Cheating is a problem
in sports. And even if I were to write one hundred articles on the
subject, its not going to change the minds of many. There will always
be questions of right behavior, whether in our government, institutions,
or athletics. To violate the “fair play” principle of another player
to ensure a better chance of winning is another person’s freedom to do
and think as he or she pleases. Right? Many from different
professions that are linked to sports support the notion that they have
the right to adopt and promote views of “winning at all costs”. Our
culture views athletics and winning as one when, in fact, they are not.
Athletics is about winning and losing. You can’t have one without
the other. Our cultural traditions value winning, and why not since
it is part of the reason sports exist. What we fail to teach our
children, students, athletes, and society in general is that the pursuit
of sports is the act of winning. Or, stated somewhat differently,
the honest pursuit of any objective (race driving, developing a business,
getting married) carries with it the responsibility to do it right.
Cheating is everything that ethics is not.
People cheat for all kinds of reasons. Their goal is the same, however.
They want to get something that doesn’t belong to them. It violates
the standards of right and wrong. That is, cheating is about doing
what we should not be doing. It is wrong. Conversely, ethical
standards guide us to what we should do, how we should think about life
and all aspects of it, including but not limited to the right of privacy,
the right from injury or harm and, as members of a shared community, the
right to a just and unpolluted sports program [9].
My father, my football coaches in high
school, and coaches thereafter (particularly Fred Martenize, my gymnastics
coach) taught me to be a virtuous person. Fairness was expected.
Integrity was required. Self-control and prudence were traits consistent
with their moral principles. They taught me to do more good than
harm, to treat people with dignity and respect, and to be fair and just
[10]. Being a gymnast in college was not about recognition or becoming
a rock star. At no time did my coaches talk about multi-vitamins
or sports supplements. No one ever thought about cheating to win.
Deception was not part of my athletic upbringing. Also, violating
rules to get the competitive edge was not part of my athletics. Transfusing
blood from a fellow gymnast or ingesting anti-inflammatory medications
(such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen) was not discussed or encouraged.
My coaches were responsible men. Athletes were expected to learn
the skills of the game, work hard to do their best, and learn that the
rules of sports are similar to the rules of life.
Rushall [11] who wrote recently “it is
time to draw a line in the sand”. I agree. Cheating is wrong.
It has always been wrong. As a baseball player years ago, I can still
remember the player who was older than he should have been to be in my
league. Everybody was uptight and upset. Faking a player’s
age is not acceptable [12]. Wolff [12] points out that cheating is
“…undertaken by overzealous-and sadly misguided-coaches or parents…” who
want to give their team an edge to win. He also said: “It’s a shameful
business, and no matter how you view it, everybody loses.” Everybody
loses when coaches and others encourage supplement use, too. Athletes
learn to think that it is O.K. to cheat to win. As a result, Barr
[13] is absolutely correct when he said: “Gone are the days of believing
the outcome of every game, every competition is on the up and up…It’s rotten
and it stinks…Fairness in sports is…destroyed by greed and a moral competitive
compass gone haywire.”
The promotion of sports supplements has
come to seem like business as usual among exercise physiologists.
As such, it isn’t a good thing that we have failed to evaluate our motives
and/or research interests. Hence, in my opinion, the culture of dishonesty,
where the philosophy is that research justifies cheating, has encouraged
“…deceit as part of the competitive spirit….” [14] The deceit is
endless. It has a life of its own, especially since it encourages
exploitation. As an example, sports nutrition stores can be found
in just about every community. We hear all the time that athletes
do not eat a varied diet with sufficient calories to meet their energy
needs. The answer is simple. Buy a supplement from any number
of different sources. This is the wrong answer for obvious reasons.
The right answer is: “If you want to be an athlete, then eat a varied diet
with an adequate number of calories to meet the physical demands of your
sport.” Athletes ought to be hearing the simplicity of this message
from exercise physiology professionals. Every effort therefore must
be made to ensure that athletes get the message that “…not all dietary
supplements can be regarded as safe, even when the label or promotional
material says they are.” [15] False representation of the safety
or efficacy of a supplement is as big a problem as is the use of supplements
to gain an advantage.
A person who uses dietary supplements and/or
drugs is not an athlete. He or she is a cheat. It is really
that simple. No one can convince me otherwise. Like you, I
grew up playing sports and understanding that different sports had different
rules to govern the players. Rules are necessary to play sports.
Athletes must accept the rules and adhere to them. To argue “everyone
is doing supplements and drugs” is no argument at all to justify the practice.
It breaks or bends the rules of fair play. It goes against the very
reason parents encourage their children to play sports. Parents expect
fairness across the board, and they expect the coaches to be ethical mentors
and leaders in athletics. They expect their children’s coaches to
not lose sight of the purpose of athletics. And many parents are
fed up with the “winning at all cost" mentality. They want the high
school and college coaches to get beyond the corruption of athletics by
teaching that the use of supplements and drugs is wrong. Ironically,
some exercise physiologists don’t seem to get the message. Unless
we do, I believe it is just a matter of time before the professional development
of exercise physiologists will be questioned. We should help coaches
come to terms with cheating in athletics. After all, athletics is
exercise, and we are “exercise” physiologists.
The reality is that athletes will not stop
using supplements or drugs until their coaches put their foot down.
The message that every coach should promote is: “If you cheat, you
don’t play on my team. If you want to be an athlete for lucrative
corporate sponsorships, and you are willing to do anything for the money,
then, you don’t play on my team. If you don’t expect to play by the
rules, you don’t play on my team. Understand that playing on my team
is not about greed or developing star athletes who believe the world revolves
around them. Make no mistake: Your behavior and lifestyle will
not slip by undetected. As your coach, I am concerned about your
total (mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual) development as a human
being.” A message of this kind is totally different from the expectation
of some coaches and athletes who are in the “go position” waiting for “…a
whole new class of gene-spliced performance boosters that will make the
current crop of drugs seem like aspirin.” [16]
“Hello, wake up America” is an expression
I’ve used in class from time to time. With a slight modification,
I think it is 100% appropriate in this article, too. “Hello, wake
up exercise physiologists.” Gene doping is just around the corner,
which causes me to raise the question: If sports supplements are
not an ethical issue for athletes and everyone associated with athletics,
is the genetically juiced athlete a problem? It is a problem for
me, and it should be a problem for all exercise physiologists. Why?
Exercise physiology is an evolving healthcare profession. It is not
a research forum for select groups of individuals to do research.
It is not about jumping higher or running faster, important as they are
to athletics. Exercise physiology is more than grant writing or developing
research laboratories, although both are very important when kept in perspective.
Exercise physiology is not about risking the athlete’s health for a gold
medal. It is not about finding a legal drug or supplement to boost
strength. It is not about supporting misguided thinking that performance
enhancing “testing” (such as the IOC or WADA) versus a “no performance
enhancing policy for athletes” will win the war against cheating.
No amount of money ($50 million or $100
million) will correct the cheating. It is a far-fetched notion that
has gone on too long. Rather than trying to figure out how to detect
athletes who genetically modify themselves, why not stop the insanity?
Why not restore the original idea that cheating is unacceptable?
There is no respect for cheaters. This is a painful statement, but
it’s the only reality that will save us. There is absolutely no way
that we can keep tabs on the epidemic of performance-enhancing agents in
sports. Am I the only one who understands this point? Am I
the only one who sees our failure, as exercise physiologists, to teach
that the use of performance-enhancing agents is cheating in sports and,
make no mistake about it, is wrong, unethical behavior that needs cleaning
up? Exercise physiologists cannot be part of the mentality that associates
with the following statement: “Some athletes have said they would
take a drug to enhance their performance, even if there was a risk it might
kill them.” [17] We should not associate ourselves with individuals
who are willing to risk death to win or to get huge financial rewards.
This is not the image that we need. It raises concern for me as a
founder of the American Society of Exercise Physiologists. Surely,
it is important to evaluate why research is justified in finding yet another
sports supplement. Is it worth creating more cheaters? Is it
worth the athlete’s health or life? Is there really a safe (although
still unethical) alternative to illicit use of performance-enhancing substances?
Misner [18] thinks so. But, here again, there are more questions
than answers. Consider, for example, Misner’s electronic response
to the BMJ “News Roundup” regarding athletes risk when using performance
enhancers: “…various substances such as Krebs cycle intermediates
and cyclic anaerobic substrates are rapidly depleted but slowly replaced.
It is well agreed that these depleted substrates may be replaced faster
in concentrated dose than through less-concentrated food sources.
In repletion dose only, the depleted subject advantages [his] own physical
environment for a performance advantage over the subject choosing not to
ingest the concentrate source.” My point is this: Note
that his use of the words “may be” to support the assumed connection between
well agreed and a faster replacement of the depleted substrates, which
is followed then by a sentence that defines cheating in athletics.
Exercise physiologists should not be impressed
with self-deception that, in short, “…is the process or fact of misleading
ourselves to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid.” [19]
We deceive ourselves when we think our future is in athletics per se.
We are healthcare professionals. We mislead athletes when we support
performance-enhancing substances. We cheat our profession when we
give “…full attention to confirmatory data, but [are] unaware of or oblivious
to disconfirmatory data.” [19] We cannot help athletes without doing
what is best for them. If we fail to do that, we cannot win the respect
of other healthcare professions. We cannot fail Integrity 101, and
we do it big time when eighth graders are encouraged to use anabolic steroids
because we believe in improving athletic performance more so than improving
the character of young people. We must teach that life is not about
being buffed at the exclusion of ethical thinking. There are no shortcuts
to achieving real success. It comes with hard work, not stacking
supplements and drugs.
“Can we, as coaches, parents,
athletic administrators, former and current athletes find a high road above
the debate, beyond the pressures imposed by a society that says winning
is everything. Can we translate this into a meaningful moral message
about drug use in athletics? Can we communicate this message to a young
generation whose decisions regarding sports, and how they are conducted,
will reflect the basic values at the core of their lives?” -- Mark
Winitz [20, p. 1]
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