The MLB steroid era – an era that lasted over a decade where you can reasonably presume that most of the players you watched were using steroids, HGH, or some other performance enhancing drug.
Tiger Woods and his lacking respect for the vows of marriage he took with his wife. The greatest golfer ever was a serial cheater, leading a life so devoid of empathy and respect for his wife that many have called him a psychopath in the aftermath of learning about the countless number of “girlfriends” he had on the side. 
Lance Armstrong not only cheated to win all his Tour de France races, but also threatened (and even sued) countless others who even dared to suggest that he cheated. Now that he has admitted to all of the accusations, he is being called by some the worst cheater in the history of sports.
And then there’s Manti Teo. I don’t even know where to start with his bizarre story.
The list goes on and on when it comes to sports and poor judgement, as it seems not a week goes by where some elite-level athlete makes the news for cheating on the field — or engaging in irresponsible, unethical, or illegal behaviors off the field. Admittedly, it sure seems as though it has never been this difficult in the past to find positive, clean, and inspiring sports role models for kids, but maybe it’s always been this bad and we just didn’t know about it. Still, I have a few key sport psychology questions….
- Is the bar set too high for today’s athletes? Is it our own fault as fans that we have created an expectation that our sports stars play by the rules and act like responsible citizens off the field?
- Do these same problems happen with such frequency in other areas of life, too? In other words, do people from other walks of life (i.e. politicians, musicians, entertainers, etc.) cheat like this in order to win? And do they live outside of their work with the same abandonment of basic values as so many athletes do?
- Is social media making this all too easy? You can bet that if a high profile athlete today so much as short-changes a server on a tip that ESPN will have the story featured on all of their daily programs. In the old days before cable television and the internet, none of the stories we hear about daily would have ever made to the general public.
- Have we become desensitized to it all? Do we as a society even care anymore? With a new story breaking all the time, have we become used to the fact that elite-level athletes often do whatever they can to win (even if it’s cheating), and live reckless lives off the field? Many people loved the HR era of “steroid baseball,” cheered Tiger Woods on during his comeback, and have forgiven Lance Armstrong for cheating during his career because he raised money for cancer.
When I think about these questions, I keep coming back to even more questions about what we are doing as a society to prevent many of these problems from occurring? More specifically, are we making the efforts we should in youth and interscholastic sports to help coaches, in turn, help the young athletes they guide learn about and understand the importance of positive role modeling and leadership? Or are we so focused on winning that we leave it up to young athletes to learn about role modeling and leadership on their own?
Unfortunately, leadership and role modeling are not learned about passively, and it requires that adults make consistent, concerted efforts to teach kids about things like sportsmanship, respect, and integrity. Of course, even with the best efforts to teach kids about these qualities there will still be individuals who cheat on the field, and live irresponsible lives off the field — but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to help kids use sports as a vehicle for leadership and life success.
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armstrong, baseball, integrity, lance, manti, psychology, sport, sportsmanship, steroids, teo, tiger, woods
