Perspectives: Sports and sin

by Brad Locke
February 19, 2007

(OneNewsNow.com) - - I've written before how sports can be an escape from reality and its daily harshness, but I find more and more that it's not much of an escape at all. If it's not serving as a conduit for sinfulness, sports is at least a forum where misguided people can flaunt and proclaim their twisted beliefs. Two very recent instances illustrate how sports serves in both capacities

On the day I am writing this (February 15), the Daytona 500 and the beginning of the NASCAR season are three days away. Much of the talk will be about not who might win or the new Chase format, etc., but about the five crew chiefs suspended from the race for cheating.

To varying degrees, the cars of Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Scott Riggs, Elliott Sadler and Michael Waltrip were, um, creatively enhanced in hopes of gaining an edge. All were heavily punished, with Waltrip's crew chief, David Hyder, fined a record $100,000. Waltrip will start the season 100 points in the hole.

This is similar to what happened before last year's Daytona 500, when Jimmie Johnson's crew chief, Chad Knaus, was suspended for the season's first four races when caught making illegal improvements.

Johnson went on to win his first Nextel Cup championship.

So what we have here is man using sports as a conduit for sin. In my mind, this sort of subterfuge is as heinous as baseball players taking steroids. Cheating is cheating, no matter what form it takes. I'm glad NASCAR came down hard on these guys, though not everyone feels the same way.

Three of the suspended crew chiefs work for Ray Evernham -- I'm sure that's mere coincidence -- and he took great exception to the severity of the punishment, as did team owner Jack Roush and his driver, Kenseth.

They all harped on NASCAR's inconsistency in meting out justice -- and it's true that the sport's officials practice capricious parenting -- but only Waltrip stood up like a man and accepted blame.

Athletes caught red-handed always have an excuse or a justification, don't they? It's always, "Oh, I thought it was flaxseed oil," or, " A jilted masseuse spiked by Gatorade," or, "I, a five-star, world-class athlete, didn't have a clue what I was putting down the gullet of this fine-tuned machine that is my body." Please.

But excusing sin is the easiest way to deal with it, isn't it? And if you celebrate sin often enough, it will even become accepted.

That brings me to the second way sports and sin come together. Sports has become a forum for many good things, from racial equality (Jackie Robinson) to international goodwill (World Cup of Baseball). It has now become a forum for the likes of John Amaechi.

Why a former NBA player of no renown who's declared his homosexuality would merit such media saturation is beyond me, but Amaechi and his new book -- Man in the Middle -- have been all over the airwaves this week. The media didn't devote as much air time or as many words to San Diego's Pro Bowl linebacker, Shawne Merriman, who was outed as a juicer during the season and was docked a measly four games.

Of course, Amaechi hasn't been receiving media criticism as Merriman did. No, he's being touted as a courageous crusader for gay rights. In reality, he's like those cheating crew chiefs, except that I have yet to hear of the crew chiefs saying that their behavior is simply what they are, and we shouldn't judge them for being made this way.

Before anybody's knees start jerking, let me be clear and say that unlike former NBAer Tim Hardaway, I don't hate gays. I don't hate anybody. It's against my religion.

I'm sure Amaechi's a swell guy. I've got nothing against him. However, it saddens me to hear ESPN Radio jocks lamenting how LeBron James made "lukewarm" comments about homosexuals in basketball, or wishing that people would be more "open-minded." Anyone who doesn't agree with Amaechi and his supporters is immediately cast aside as an unenlightened meathead, and there is no discussion on the subject of homosexuality itself, because then people would have to actually try to defend their position, an unenviable task indeed.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "forum," because in Amaechi's case, sports is serving as more of a soap box. And on a soap box, there is no room for any other opinions, especially when sin commands the floor.