We have exalted the role of the sports star to the status of a god. And along with the status of a god we have added the moral responsibility of a god. I say let the perfect one cast the first stone. How many mere mortals can say they have achieved life-long perfection in any are of their life?
We even have higher qualifications for the god-like role of sports star that exceed the standards we set for the President Of The United States Of America, the most powerful man in the world. Isn’t it strange that we can have someone in the White House that is an ex-steroid user, but not to throw a ball in a sports stadium? After all, what would the children think?
It is O.K. in our cultural value system to have someone in the White House that is an ex-marijuana user, an alcoholic, a sex addict, or worse. And I’m not advocating that we take presidential candidates and hold every past sin and present weakness against them. I just find it odd that we have higher standards for professional sports figures than we do our head of state
Even Paul, the Apostle, who wrote much of the New Testament, came from a shady past. He spent his early years as a religious zealot murdering Christians and then later became one. In reality, he was a reformed mass murderer. He went on to become the greatest spokesperson for Christianity in the history of the world with the exception of Jesus himself. Some of the early slave ship captains in England became advocates of the slaves and helped to rid their nation of slavery.
There is a need for balance in this whole issue of sports and drugs. I watched with amazement as a well known sports hero was grilled for several days by congress while at the same time we had legislation expiring that was crucial to our national security in fighting terrorists. Not only that, but while congress was focused on their sports inquisition, millions of taxpayers are unemployed, losing their homes, and the entire nation is getting uncomfortably close to a financial collapse.
Let the sports organizations police their own. If they fail to do it, it will be at their own peril. Let’s take a lesson from baseball and give them at least three strikes before we give them a life sentence. And if a sports hero breaks a criminal law, here’s a newsflash, we already have a criminal justice system in place. We don’t have to convene a session of the U.S. Congress to deal with it, they’re busy enough lying to the public and screwing up the job we sent them to Washington to do.
