CHEATING IN SPORTS

"It doesn't matter whether you win or lose; it's how you play the game." This is a common saying in American sports, meaning that fun and good sportsmanship are more important than victory. However, two related factors have been pushing American sports in a different direction. One of these factors is the intensity of Americans' obsession¹ with their favorite teams, and the other is the money and prestige that go along with winning. These two factors put extreme pressure on both players and coaches to focus single- mindedly on victory. Inevitably, the result is a problem that is spreading and becoming more serious. That problem is cheating.

Of course, there are rules in all sports to penalize² cheating. So coaches and players have had to come up with ingenious ways to get around the rules. Getting a competitive edge, even unfairly, is seen as a "strategy" rather than cheating. Illegal acts are now even being accepted as part of the game. Coaches encourage players to cheat, or coaches simply look the other way when they know players commit illegal acts during games. And referees³ either fail to intervene, or they impose⁴ minimal penalties.

A professor of sports and recreation, Dr. James Frey, introduced the term "normatives⁵ cheating" to refer to the methods of cheating commonly used in sports today. This refers to strategies used to create conditions of some advantage over an opponent. They are called "normative" because there are no explicit rules against these strategies. Instead, they are loopholes⁶ that coaches and players have learned how to use to gain a competitive advantage.

There are many forms of normative cheating. In basketball, for example, it is common for a player to pretend to be fouled in order to receive an undeserved foul shot. In football, players are typically coached to use techniques⁷ to hold or trip opponents without referees noticing. And in baseball, home teams often "doctor" their fields to suit their strengths and minimize the strengths of their opponents. For example, if a home team knows they will face a fast team, they will spread water or sand between bases to slow down the runners of the other team. Another technique used by home teams to cheat is increasing the heat in the visitor's locker room to make the athletes sluggish⁸. And some schools even use psychological tricks such as painting the visitor's locker room pink, a color said to reduce strength and make people less aggressive⁹.

Normative cheating extends to off-the-field areas of sports as well. Colleges compete by offering scholarships to the best high-school players in the country. Although there are rules about when and how often colleges can contact high-school recruits, coaches are adept at bending these rules. For instance, it is against the rules to send newspaper clippings about a university sports team to players being recruited. However, if a newspaper clipping is attached to the back of a letter, it is technically OK, even if the letter has only one sentence.

Normative cheating has even entered American high-school sports. If a good athlete wants to play for a school far away from where he or she lives, he or she may move to the home of a relative or friend that does live near that school. That way, the athlete technically lives within the school district of his or her new school. The athlete has obeyed the letter of the law¹⁰, but not the spirit.

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Performance-Enhancing Drugs

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has established special rules banning drugs that enhance performance. However, some athletes are experimenting with new drugs that are difficult to detect. The IOC forbids athletes from using steroids as strength builders. The most popular steroids are man-made forms of testosterone, a hormone already present in the body.

Another popular performance-enhancer is erythropoietin (EPO). EPO promotes red blood cell production. These cells deliver oxygen throughout the body. The oxygen boost it provides can improve an athlete's performance in a twenty-minute run by thirty seconds. In a marathon, it could give an athlete a four-minute advantage. EPO is dangerous because it can make the blood too thick for the heart to pump.

Human growth hormone (HGH), a third commonly used enhancer, contains naturally occurring amino acids that helps control growth from birth to adulthood. Genetically engineered HGH became available in 1985. Athletes use HGH to develop bigger muscles and then take steroids to strengthen the muscles. The drug is hard to detect because it passes out of the body in less than forty-five minutes.

Not everyone agrees that such drugs ought to be banned. Some argue that they should be allowed in order to help athletes perform at their best. As long as all competitors have access to the same substances, the argument goes, then there is nothing unfair about them.