Why is Cheating in Sports Such a Big Deal?

In athletics there’s always been a willingness to cheat if it looks like you’re not cheating. I think that’s just a quirk of human nature. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

In light of the Barry Bonds trial that is currently ongoing, we began to wonder to ourselves, “Why is cheating in sports such a big deal?”  Outside of the sports arena, everybody has lied, cheated or been dishonest at some point in their life – it’s just human nature.  People lie on their income taxes and cheat on their spouses every day.  These things are a big deal because they are real life – but sports…well sports is just entertainment, a game, a relief from the struggles of everyday life.  If the purpose of sports is to provide you with entertainment for 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon, then does it really matter if players are taking steroids, scuffing baseballs, holding without the ref’s calling it, or lying about who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds?

Man vs. Man

The truth of the matter is that lying and cheating in sports is a huge deal.  Even though we use sports as a way to relax and often live vicariously through someone else, our human brain reacts so negatively to the thought of cheating.  Deep down inside, we want to believe that sports are a reflection of man vs. man (or woman vs. woman) at its purest.  This isn’t science vs. man or man vs. machine.  The outcome is only to be influenced by the natural brain and muscle power of one human versus another.  When you start incorporating outside factors is when our human, sports loving, brains begin to see some red flags.

A Tough Comparison

Sports fans love to compare.  We look at how one player did against his stats from last year, against a particular team, and even against a particular player.  We love stats like “The Patriots have never lost a game in which they led against the Falcons at halftime, inside a dome, during the Bill Bellichick Era.”  Stats like these give us something tangible to compare things to.  Sports fans also love to speculate about dream matchups.  Do you wonder if LeBron’s Heat played against Michael’s Bulls who the winner would be?  Ever wonder if Babe Ruth would have hit more home runs if he had access to today’s modern scouting reports, hitting coaches, and video equipment?  Would he have hit less if he played after baseball was desegregated?  When cheating and unnatural enhancements come into play, it turns a typically easy comparison into one as tough as the Babe Ruth example from above – nobody knows for sure.  How many home runs would Bonds have hit without steroids?  How many K’s and Cy Young’s would Clemens have if he didn’t juice?  Cheating is a big deal.

Dishonesty Worse than Cheating?

If there was ever an offense greater than cheating in sports, it would be dishonesty.  It takes quite a bit of wrong-doing to get banned from Major League Baseball, but Pete Rose did it and might never get back in its good graces.  What was his offense?  Was it steroid use? Using corked bats? Getting pitches tipped?  No – he gambled on baseball games while playing for and managing the Cincinnati Reds.  It has never been proven whether he intentionally shaved points or gave less than 100% while on the field, but we banned him just because we could never again say for sure whether any games he was a part of would have had the same outcome, had he not been gambling on them.

Players Policing Themselves

Although there are umpires, referees and official judges, for all intents and purposes, many sports are policed by the players themselves.  Golfers keep their own scorecards, Nascar drivers must keep their engines tuned within the guidelines, and baseball players must use approved equipment.  When the cameras are off, we expect athletes to be honest.  We expect them to achieve a standard that we often don’t meet ourselves, and when they fall short, fans have a feeding frenzy.  There is no excuse for cheating in sports.  When an athlete knowingly is dishonest to gain an advantage, it shatters the mold of everything we as fans want to believe about sports.

Dishonesty and cheating in sports is a big deal because, in our brains, the athletic arena is the one place we still believe to be pure of all corruption.  Please don’t ruin that for all of us.