Leadership Thought: Athletics, Coaching, and Cheating on the Professional Playing Field.

Dear Friends,

“Philadelphia Eagles’ Malik Jackson got away with hilarious cheating at the line of scrimmage.”  These words grabbed my attention as I was getting my early morning "sports' fix," while scanning the sports world. Intrigued by the quote, I read on to learn that in the closing minutes of the Eagles’ Sunday night win against the San Francisco 49ers, Jackson tried to give the Eagles a small advantage when the 49ers were only a foot from the end zone. After the referee had placed the ball down and turned around, Jackson's foot gently nudged the football a few inches away from the end zone in hopes of gaining an advantage for the Eagles defense. Someone later commented, "Well cheating isn’t cheating, is it, if you don’t get caught.” Wow! Has athletics really reached this level?

Now this incident won’t go down in the annals of sports’ history among the worst cheating episodes ever recorded. Of course, there were many others that were far worse than this one. One may remember the Houston Astros stealing baseball signs, and a few years further back there was the New England Patriots who were caught spying and filming another team’s practice and then later deflating the game ball to make is easier for Tom Brady to throw touchdowns.  And of course, we can go all the way back to the Black Sox scandal in 1919, and in more recent decades Lance Armstrong and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire and the doping and steroids’ scandals. These scandals along with many more like them have given sports its own black eye.

As a former college athlete, coach and athletic director who has always been committed to living by the rules and doing everything possible in an effort to maintain the integrity of sports, I am appalled to read of the things coaches will do in exchanging honesty and sportsmanship for athletic success.

A number of years ago a nationally known coach-I won’t mention his name- taught his basketball players how to stop the clock. He includes the following options for his players:

1. Designate the player who is going to lose his contact lens.

2. Designate the player who will throw a little water on the floor and then have your bench yell: “There’s water on the floor.” The officials will stop the clock every time. Make sure, however, that you are nowhere near the spot where it occurs.

3. Fake an injury, make sure, however, that the player you designate isn’t your star player because he must come out of the game due to the injury.

This coach may be an expert, according to some, but expert in my mind he is not. For me, his character flaw negates his status as an expert. Expert deceiver or fraud or imposter, but not an expert coach. Coach and cheating should never walk hand in hand.

Albert Schweitzer said, “Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now-always." I would wish that Schweitzer’s philosophy always carried over into the world of sports

It is because sports have become big business where winning at any cost has resulted in coaches cutting corners in search of victories. Character development, which once was the bedrock of athletics, has eroded in the face of pressure to win at any cost. 

The culture of sports needs to change, I am sad to say.

Those of you who may be involved in coaching at any level must never lose sight of your goal -to shape and mold the character of young men and women by exemplifying integrity in every area of your lives.

That unknown author who espoused the following life philosophy said it so well:

“Sow a thought, reap an act.

Sow an act, reap a habit.

Sow a habit, reap a character.

Sow a character, reap a destiny.

Coach and teachers, parents and pastors, friends, and followers of Jesus, you are helping to develop the destiny of our nation. May God give you wisdom in the shaping process, and may you always remember that in the process “Righteousness guards the man of integrity, but wickedness overthrows the sinner.” (Proverbs 16:6).

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom