Carpe Diem

Brock University’s C.I.S. Men’s Basketball National Title victory on Sunday - following Acadia’s 82-80 double-overtime defeat of five-time defending champions Carleton in the semi-finals - proved again how anything is possible, in sport and life. Any Canadian team would have won out and claimed the W.P. McGee trophy. In fact, the dark jerseys won seventy percent of games played at the Final 8 Tournament.

The odds finally caught up to the Ravens. At once they faced an intransigent opponent, shot poorly, saw calls go against them, and did not recover every lucky bounce. A team can often overcome one or two critical obstacles but beating a great team while playing poorly is usually unfeasible.

Association media pundits would describe Carleton’s match-up with Acadia as a classic “trap game”, a surprisingly tough challenge to face before the main goal. The Axemen’s natural motivations to win the game were supplemented with a desire to avenge a blowout loss from the 2007 tournament. Even with the most physically talented and mentally tough team, playing at home, the Ravens fell short.

Other squads, those who can’t say that they executed every single aspect of the season to the best of their abilities have no recourse to blame but themselves. A number of teams beat the shocking champion during the regular season but none when it counted. Anyone could have won this past year but to attribute the result to fate is a mistake.

Like the N.C.A.A. Tournament, some teams lamented their exclusion from the Final 8 (some more on the Monday afterwards than before). Some teams learnt the hard way how national rankings are meaningless when not supported by wins at the end of the season. But also like the N.C.A.A. Tournament, no team with a legitimate claim to winning the entire bracket was excluded

Coaches, players, administrators, and supporters should look inward and evaluate whether they succeeded in terms of recruiting, skill development, team defence, rebounding, moving without the ball, perimeter shooting, attacking the basket, and strategies and tactics. Winning at the highest level demands severe commitment and there is always room for improvement (certainly balance is important in life but this blog entry is about self-actualization and personal development). Coaches should be at Humber College’s Lakeshore Campus for the U15 and U17 tryouts this weekend, followed by O.B.A. championships and summer leagues.

2008’s remorse and regret should fuel off-season training and in-season motivation throughout the next year. Carleton will certainly be driven to reclaim what they perceive to be their crown. Shouldn’t all teams share this mindset?

Peut ce qui veut

David Cronenberg’s latest film, Eastern Promises, bears a handful of the director’s trademarks. Some scenes of violence are blunt, though it is not yet time for our William Tell routine. The plot is tense and (obviously) leads to an ambiguous ending. Viggo Mortensen’s tragic hero, Nikolai, earns the sympathy of the audience because of his subdued performance.

Questions of commitment arise from both sides of the ledger: how far will you go to achieve your goals? «Peut ce qui veut.»

Values are vague -- like other recently reviewed films, less separates good and evil than it first seems. One decision might lead down a thorny path that is difficult to escape. What ends justify the means? If the Vory V Zakone are one of the most brutally violent organizations in the world, is there a limit that restricts the methods employed to apprehend the gang?

A number of the principal characters are deeply conflicted. Nothing is black and while: among the shades of grey there are multiple sides to every issue from sexual identity to the value of life.

Or is it all part of a steep price?

Just Win Baby

Struggling to keep up with all the latest cheating news and unsure about how my coaching philosophy places all of this in context, I used Al Davis’ motto as a title. From Tim Donaghy to HGH to the New England Patriots, I’m not sure whether the rules should be black and white or shades or grey. How does one define bending the rules to gain an advantage and how is this different from outright rule-breaking by a coach or athlete? Is sport more like professional wrestling - where Hulk Hogan must overcome not only the Iron Shiek but his blatant cheating as well - than a true competition?

There has been no shortage of scandals in recent months (dubbed Cheatwave ’07 by ESPN.com). In order of severity:

Tim Donaghy

Obviously, this is the most serious example of cheating. Referees influencing the outcome or nature of games and players betting against their own teams should not be tolerated. Even those who are tempted to bet for their own teams or gamble on other sports because it can give organized crime leverage over a coach, player, or official.

I’m mildly surprised that the basketball officiating scandal had been limited to Tim Donaghy, who was involved with two of the five most badly officiated games that I watched this year, including a game in the Phoenix-San Antonio season that could have determined the championship. It would make a lot of sense for Association referees to become caught up in gambling; weak calls could be blamed on an interest in the game’s outcome instead of lack of ability, poor position, favoritism towards stars, home court advantage, politics, and the innumerable other factors required to create such inconsistency.

Due to the severity of gambling and the consequences, including threats and violence, infractions should be swiftly and strictly punished.

Performance Enhancing Drugs

One on hand, I believe that professional sport is for entertainment only and athletes should be allowed to do whatever they need to put on the best show. On the other hand, I don’t want sport to get to the point where athletes must endanger their health in order to compete. At some levels, I think that society doesn’t care to have pervasive cheating so it’s necessary to define the murky area of performance enhancing supplements, like steroids and H.G.H..

The scale of the B.A.L.C.O. scandal proves that this is no easy task. As science uncovers more ill effects of controlled substances, it seems more obvious that they should be banned, perhaps at the behest of a health committee comprised of athletes and doctors. Any restrictions on substances should also be standard across all sports, not unique to particular sports and countries.

Espionage in F1 Racing

McLaren-Mercedes’ F1 team was fined one hundred million dollars for attempting to photocopy some of Ferrari’s designs. This malicious attempt to cheat was punished harshly, with good reason. It’s known that auto racing teams often tamper with opposing staff members, poaching pit crew members and engineers in order to gain knowledge about their competitors but this is worse because it laws and rules were consciously broken.

Scouting, noting tendencies, and analyzing signals are part of the subterfuge that occurs in all sports. But like attempts to injure a competitor, teams should not be able to actively sabotage each other or tamper with another organizer in a way that unjustly rewards the team with greater resources.

Using Technology to Cheat in the N.F.L.

It’s tremendously difficult to identify everyone who cheats throughout sport and often the exercise involves splitting hairs: is stealing signals in the N.F.L. different from stealing signs in baseball? I think that it becomes different when technology is involved. I don’t think one thing should lead to another so that game preparation becomes more Spy vs. Spy than us vs. them.

Conceivably, a home team with more staff on hand or a large-market team with more money to spend could make use of video technology unavailable to the visiting team. Coaches covering their faces to prevent lip-reading or scouts in the stands with binoculars is a throwback to yesterday; when excessive technology is employed, it changes the nature of the game.

Questions to Ask

How do gamesmanship and sportsmanship co-exist? Some cases of cheating are clearly over the line and should be banned because they comprise the integrity of sport. Other examples are less clear-cut and difficult to define. I’d set the rules based on protecting players’ health and preventing the home team from having an undue advantage but there would be a fair amount of anything goes, so to speak.

Professional sport owns an auspicious history of players and coaches doing whatever it takes to get an edge: altering the field of play to suit the home team (As Buck Showalter said: “One of the best relationships you need to have is with your home groundskeeper. Whether it’s length of grass or the texture of the dirt, there are a lot of things teams try to do to accentuate their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.”), telephoning the visiting players late at night in their hotel room, making the opposing locker rooms tremendously uncomfortable, and more.

Many fans look back on “old-time” cheating with nostalgia. I think there is a place for this, as it rewards those who use their head and think creatively. Accurate knowledge of the rulebook from cover to cover is part of a coach’s responsibilities. Referee interpretations of different cases is part of the rulebook so when a player recognizes when an official isn’t watching their area and understands the freedoms that they have during these times, they are still playing within the rules.

No to gambling, pressuring players to compromise their health, and intending to injure an opponent. Likewise, situations that provide the home team an advantage should be eliminated. But in the other situations, it’s so difficult to nitpick and allow one action while preventing something similar. Rules should be fair and even-handed, not subjective.

Fundamentally, sport is a vehicle for self-actualization. Athletes and coaches play the game in order to make the most of themselves. People must also follow a set of morals that satisfies their own needs, most of all. But if someone is performing and winning by compromising principles like fairness and respect for the opponent, are they truly reaching their potential?

“A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you’re not enough without one, you’ll never be enough with one.”
- Irv Blitzer

Game of Shadows

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, authors of Game of Shadows, make a compelling case concerning the use of performance enhancing substances in sport. Designer steroids (such as the Clear and the Cream) or Human Growth Hormone have powered numerous athletic achievements, from baseball’s home run chases to the 2000 Olympics. After reading the book, it is difficult to take any sporting record seriously.

Where is the line? Where do vitamins or natural products like flaxseed oil end and controlled substances like steroids or H.G.H. begin? Lance Armstrong’s decision to devote his entire career to train for the Tour de France gives him an advantage over competitors who contest a full cycling season. How is that different from Barry Bonds’ choice to sculpt his body so he can maximize his ability to hit for power?

Sport has been plagued by a lack of consistency and fluctuating standards. According to the authors, Jason Giambi was a B.A.L.C.O. regular yet Bud Selig has announced that he will not be penalized because he admitted his transgressions. Steroids were not banned in baseball before 2003, so what grounds remain to sanction Bonds? Perjury, arrogance, and rudeness?

Ty Cobb, Cap Anson, and numerous friends of former Veterans’ Committee members are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. There is no reason to retroactively place an asterisk besides Bonds’ records (besides, he passed baseball’s drug testing programme and won two M.V.P. Awards in 2003 and 2004).

Drug testing could be an exact science yet some athletes have created the impression that the results are vague and imprecise. Also, uniformity is lacking because of differences across the globe, such as those between W.A.D.A. and the U.S. Track & Field. Sport requires standards: to clearly outline what is permitted and what is not and to enforce the rules.

Professional sport is unwilling to seriously do this. First of all, professional sport is for entertainment only (i.e. N.B.A. officiating). Secondly, early deaths in wrestling have established that although there is a severe cost to anabolic steroid use, athletes are still willing to knowingly cheat in order to chase fleeting fame.

Until the murky situation is clarified - and Game of Shadows suggests that it’s far more pervasive than most people think - it isn’t possible or fair to prosecute athletes for doing things that were previously within the rules. Perhaps fish oil will be banned tomorrow; what a high performance athlete eats is radically different a “lay-person’s diet” that there is hardly any connection.

Where is the line? How do we know what athletic accomplishments are legitimate and which were aided by other substances? Why is pine tar treated differently than H.G.H.? Why can Mark McGwire have an exhibit in Cooperstown while Joe Jackson cannot? I think that sport should reboot all of the rules and proceed under a system where anything goes or ban all cheating.