I graduated from a university famous for its basketball team. The star player was in my art class. At least he was theoretically in my art class. He showed up a few times during the semester sans homework. When the professor reprimanded him about his performance in her class, he responded with a bored, I’m-too-important-for-this look on his face.
And it was true; he was too important for art class because it didn’t matter if he failed. He, the team, and the university’s celebrity coach, brought glamour, fame and buckets of money into the school, so they were untouchable.
It was well-known that the coach — therefore the school — paid for the players’ sports cars, hookers, and trips to Vegas. They received full athletic scholarships and guaranteed graduation from one of the most prestigious schools in the country regardless of their GPA while the rest of us had to actually earn our degrees.
I found this so abhorrent that I attended only one basketball game during my undergraduate years. Many moons later, my philosophical objection to enabling the excesses of professional athletes is so deeply entrenched that I have little interest in any televised sport.
Which brings me to Lance Armstrong.
His Oprah-fueled admission to doping, after years of fervent denial, has outraged the public so much that he is being stripped the vestiges of his fame: Tour de France titles, lucrative sponsorships, and his association with Livestrong, the cancer foundation he started.
His admission seems to have shocked the public. But why? Why did anyone believe that one person could win seven Tour de France titles without synthetic aid? Especially after recovering from cancer?
Why did corporate sponsors continue to throw money at him when it was a not-so-well-kept secret in the cycling world that most of the cyclists were doping? And that Armstrong was lying? And that he was using his klout to threaten the careers of any colleague who grew weary of colluding with him?
Clearly news networks, sports networks, and corporate sponsors didn’t want to lose their cash cow. But by enabling the dark side of Professional Athlete Privilege, Sports Culture gave Armstrong full license to act like a sociopath. I certainly don’t mean to say that Armstrong isn’t accountable for his actions. What I am saying is that the athlete-idolizing public is accountable as well.
The Price of Enabling Professional Athlete Privilege
Personally, I think we should legalize doping in professional sports. If everyone gets to dope, no one needs to lie. Either that or we need to recognize there is a limit to what the human body can do and not require athletes to be superheroes.
Enabling Armstrong, and other professional athletes, is bad for our culture. It fuels narcissism and ethical misconduct. It teaches children that cheating, lying, and bullying are perfectly acceptable behaviors for gifted athletes, and, hey, wouldn’t it be swell to grow up to be a rich and famous athlete who doesn’t have to follow pesky rules?
As a parent, I find this message deeply troubling. How do I teach my kids about ethics and empathy when the Lance Armstrongs of the world prove that jettisoning scruples is an easy way to get ahead? Why should children listen to anti-bullying messages when they hear stories of athletes and CEOs terrorizing underlings to get their way?
My kids will grow up to inherit wealth from their dad’s family. Despite my ambivalence around inherited wealth, I must admit that I am relieved to know that they will always have what they need.
But if they weren’t going to inherit money, and I knew they would have to depend on increasingly quaint notions like ethics and hard work to be successful, I would be worried about their futures. Because children who won’t grow up to be insanely athletic, brilliant, rich, or connected, but WILL grow up to be principled adults who want to work hard are no longer ensured of even a middle-class lifestyle.
And THAT is why we need to stop enabling professional athletes, and all those who use their privilege to trample the rules. Because the fate of most children in this country depends on it.
Amen.
WELL SAID!!! This irritates me to no end. And it’s parents who glom onto the dream of living large that continue this problem on and on. I recently spoke to a mom of a child who is physically developmentally delayed and who believes, with everything she has, that her child will get a full-ride to college because of athletics. IT WON’T HAPPEN for 99% of kids, but because we glamorize athletes (cheaters, liars, truly gifted, or other), that the focus that should be on growing up ethical and smart is channeled into searching for the best, biggest buck. Ugh.
Trying to do something about it:
http://www.chillmanager.org.
Thank you so much for this wonderful article.
And as you pointed out – it’s not just athletes. I was married to the Lance Armstrong, John Edwards, Tiger Woods, James Frey, Bernie Madoff of Chiropractic. His malice, fraud, threats and perjury were just stepping stones for him and he still maintains his status, wealth and notoriety. If you or I had embezzled over $800,000 from someone and committed perjury – we would be in jail and ordered to pay restitution.
I guess if you cheat your family out of the money and lie about it – it’s not really a crime.
I find the whole thing very sad. I was a bicycle racer back in the ’70s. Back then, there were no professional racers in the U.S. We heard from time to time about drug use in professional circles in Europe, and it was widely assumed that the East Germans were all on steroids. But it really wasn’t happening much here, since it was such a small-time fringe sport with no money associated with it. The extent of our doping back then was drinking Celestial Seasonings’ high-caffeine “Morning Thunder” tea before races. It was apparently a more innocent time.
Yes. Thank you. My son is only in 1st grade and I find myself swimming upstream in this culture of raising super athletes. Never mind that we live in a small podunk town in the middle of nowhere and the chances of us producing a world class professional athlete is about the same as my chances in winning the lotto. But even the school districts prioritize sports over pretty much anything. Kids are pulled out of school routinely so they can play their sports. Teachers are expected to bend over backwards for their high school athletes. In the meantime, gifted education here is a token program of one hour per week intstruction. I will have to fight and supplement my son’s education in order to keep up with his brilliant mind because there is no funding for students like him. In the meantime, our student athletes get all the perks, coaches, etc despite the fact that high school athletics will most probably be a dead end for them because compared to others in the country, they are just not that good. And if I want my son to be challenged academically, I have to fork out thousands of dollars in supplemental programs. I am perplexed by this country’s concept of education.
My one thought with this is: After years of watching him win awards, become a “National Hero”, listen to him campaign against cancer, seeing yellow plastic bracelets on every teenager and have him dating beautiful rock stars — Lance’s ex must be loving this. I can imagine that there is great joy in everyone acknowledge what you knew all along.
I imagine you’re right!
You know, I just can’t get worked up about this. Or any of the other dopers. I just don’t care. If it’s true they ALL dope then isn’t it still kind of amazing he won SEVEN times? I dunno.
I think the real outrage should be on the fact that athletes are cash cows regardless of dope usage. It’s ridiculous. That’s the big huge problem at the core of everything. If they aren’t cash cows they wouldn’t feel so damn pressured to do really stupid and desperate things.
It’s not just about not requiring athletes to be superheroes… It’s about our culture that worships success (and its trappings), and turns a blind eye to the how it is accomplished.
This is a cultural issue, a greed issue, an issue of 15 minutes of fame gone wild… everyone wants to be a superstar – or think they can get close to one.
I much prefer the “everyday heroes” whose accomplishments are less spectacular, and far more substantial.
I’m especially horrified that sports figures, politicians and other in the public eye can pretty much do whatever they want and just tearfully apologize when the are outed. I feel like they are saying sorry that they were caught, not sorry that they made a mistake. I also am sad that his foundation will probably suffer for this.