I have always been a pretty good law-abider. Maybe it’s because I am still racked with guilt due to a crime I committed 37 years ago. I think it is finally time to make a confession and free myself from this prison of shame.
I was taking a spelling test in 2nd grade. For some reason, we took our tests in the back of the spelling book. So when the teacher was going through that week’s list and said the word ‘hoof’, I hit a mental wall. I wasn’t sure if it was ‘hoof’ or ‘hoff’. Unfortunately for me, this was a couple years before this ‘Hoff’ hit it big…
Anyhow, in my pursuit of academic excellence, I put my grade before my integrity, and peeked in the front of the spelling book for the answer to this great mystery. And fortunately, I got away with the crime.
Well, ‘fortunately’ would only fit my status in the short term. But in the long term, the guilt haunted me for many a sleepless night. Finally, tonight is the night I can lay my head on my pillow in peace.
I bring up this anecdote in relation to the current cheating scandal that is the star of the current 24-hour ESPN sports loop. The one has even spilled into the mainstream news cycles of CNN and Fox News. The New England Patriots and their evil genius of a coach, Bill Belichick, are headed to their sixth Super Bowl trip in the past 14 seasons. But most of you know that their success on the the field isn’t the talk of the moment. Instead, it’s the Patiots’ appalling disregard for rules that threatens to destroy the integrity of the game!
What rule did they break that has the nation in an uproar?
Are their players taking steroids or HGH? Not that anyone knows of. (and surely no players in the NFL take any illegal substances!)
Did they illegally record the opponents in practices, pre-game warm-ups, and games? No. That story is soooo 2007.
Did they trip an opposing player as they were running down the sideline? No, that’s more of a Steelers’ thing…
Did they steal their opponents’ play book? Nope, but I seem to remember that being a big story when I was a kid. What team was it? I remember!
Caught red handed! If this pic doesn’t jog your memory of this historic crime, let me refresh your memory…
Some high school football player decided to date a girl from a rival school…
But his courtship of the lovely Marsha Brady was simply an evil plot to steal the playbook of her older brother, Greg!
Who needs the newfangled teen drama and angst of The Hunger Games or Twilight ? The Brady Bunch has more deviant plot twists that William Shakespeare on his best day!
Back to the Patriots’ dastardly crime.
The footballs they used were, ummm, well, slightly deflated. Instead of being at the league-required 12.5 pounds per square inch, they were about were at about 10.5 PSI.
Say it ain’t so, Tom (Brady). Say it ain’t so!
All this ruckus over some soft footballs? Sounds pretty lame on the surface. On the other hand, Coach Belichick’s history and reputation of blatantly disregarding league rules to gain an advantage makes this uproar a little more understandable.
But who would think of gaining an advantage by taking a little air out? I am guessing that cheating is just about as old as dirt. I am almost positive that some caveman gained an advantage in a rock-toss match by illegally altering his boulder. And how about Cain and Abel, the first children mentioned in the Bible. When any story that ends with one brother killing the other, you know that started with shenanigans going on in a game. I envision it as a heated game of cow-tipping…
Cain: “Mom, Abel cheated! He made his cows sick so they would fall over easy!”
Eve: “Abel, quit poisoning the cattle.”
Abel: “I didn’t, mom! And Cain is tipping all the little cows!”
Eve: “Come on, Cain! He’s your little brother! Let him have some little ones!”
Cain: “I did!”
Abel: “Owwwwww! Mom, Cain hit me!”
Cain: “He hit me first!”
Eve: “WOULD YOU TWO STOP FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For once, can I sit in my cave and weave baskets in peace!”
Cain and Abel: “MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Eve: “ADAM!!! WOULD YOU GET OFF YOUR ROCK AND DO SOMETHING!!!”
Adam (hiding in a back room of the cave, thinking to himself): “If I just stay quiet, she won’t know I am here.”
Eve: “Adam, I know your back there! Get out here and do something!”
Adam (thinking to himself again): “Stupid idiot! You just had to eat that apple back in the Garden of Eden!”
Cheating is a temptation that is planted in everyone’s brain. But like any other ‘forbidden fruit”, some can resist it well, while others quickly take a bite.
Golf, supposedly ‘a gentlemen’s game’, reeks of dishonesty for the typical amateur golfer. It’s as simple as saying it took you 5 shots on a hole instead of 6. And the cheater rarely gets called out. Because you know, it’s pretty hard to count to 6.
Pick-up basketball lives by the mantra of “call your own foul”. And when the players also act as refs, you know you’re in trouble. I seem to remember hearing a story in the Bible of the first one-on-one hoops game during a 2nd grade Church Sunday School class…
Abel: “Foul!”
Cain: “I didn’t touch you!”
Abel: “You hammered me!”
Cain: “I’ll show you a hammer!”
Abel. “Owww. OWWWWWW! That hurt! Wait. I think you just killed me! Literally!”
Cain: “Ooops. Sorry.”
And cheating isn’t limited to sports. Any of you out their guilty of these fibs???
Card Player A: ‘Do you have any Queens?”
Card Player B: “Ummm. Go fish.”
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Battleship Player A: “G-4”
Battleship Player B: “Ummmm. Miss.”
Monopoly Player A: “Hey, where did you get that ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card from?”
Monopoly Player B: “What are you talking about? You think I’m cheating? And I don’t remember you ever buying that ‘B & O Railroad’ card you got there!”
So whether its Cain & Abel, Belichick and Brady, or you and me, the opportunity to cheat will always be whispering sweet nothings in our ear.
So remember these two important points:
1. Cheating is a choice, not an addiction. Just say no. You might end up losing the game, but if you play honestly, you are a winner in my book.
2. ‘Hoof” has two O’s and only one F.
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You can also e-mail him: macaljancic@yahoo.com