2008 Woodie Awards
The summer of unrest in sports
Brian Lapp '08
Issue date: 9/12/07 Section: Sports
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This past week marked the beginning of the 2007 NFL Season, and I think it is safe to say the league is happy to have the nation's focus on the games themselves rather than the off-field drama. As you undoubtedly know, the NFL has been the recipient of an enormous amount of negative publicity stemming from the federal indictment and subsequent plea agreement on charges of dog-fighting by one of its most recognizable players, Michael Vick. By now most of America is not na've enough to think that all professional athletes are saints, but the impending jail sentence for a man who several years ago was the face of the NFL should serve as a sobering reminder to just how fast things can change. Since the news of Vick's terrible crimes surfaced, the NFL, led by Commissioner Roger Goddell, has been doing damage control to ensure fans, media, and various animal support groups that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated or condoned. Vick is currently awaiting sentencing in December and will serve anywhere from one to five years in a federal penitentiary, quite the fall from grace for a man who had it all and callously threw it all away.
The NFL was not the only league tainted with controversy this summer as baseball dealt with Barry Bonds breaking the all-time home run record amid a cloud of steroid suspicion. Though never having been formally charged or having tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, Bonds remains, to most, an undeserving holder of the most hallowed individual record in all of sports. Major League Baseball had to deal with the question of how to properly honor Bond's accomplishment, but at the same time remain steadfast in their opposition to performance-enhancing drugs of any kind. The real travesty was that an occasion that could have been so joyous, the surpassing of a tremendous American milestone, instead became a lightning rod for controversy. You will never hear me deny that Barry Bonds is a great baseball player, but the way in which he broke a record held by a true gentleman like Hank Aaron was questionable at best, illegal at worst, and certainly an event that Major League Baseball wishes it could have avoided.
The NFL was not the only league tainted with controversy this summer as baseball dealt with Barry Bonds breaking the all-time home run record amid a cloud of steroid suspicion. Though never having been formally charged or having tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, Bonds remains, to most, an undeserving holder of the most hallowed individual record in all of sports. Major League Baseball had to deal with the question of how to properly honor Bond's accomplishment, but at the same time remain steadfast in their opposition to performance-enhancing drugs of any kind. The real travesty was that an occasion that could have been so joyous, the surpassing of a tremendous American milestone, instead became a lightning rod for controversy. You will never hear me deny that Barry Bonds is a great baseball player, but the way in which he broke a record held by a true gentleman like Hank Aaron was questionable at best, illegal at worst, and certainly an event that Major League Baseball wishes it could have avoided.
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