It's only cheating if you get caught

A couple of weeks ago, Bill Belicheat of the Patriots was "caught" video taping the defensive signals of the other team. Said he didn't understand what the league meant when they said there will be no video cameras on the sideline, coaches box, etc. How much clearer could the league have made it? No means no, as in none, not ever. Yet, he did it and he finally got caught. According to most interviewees, it's been going on for years and that it's part of the game. Barry Bonds "supposedly" has been taking steriods and HGH for a while, ever since Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa had their incredible homerun seasons. Barry is now the *homerun king of baseball. He will hold that title for a while because he hasn't been caught. Most baseball players, although recognizing him as being a jerk, accept what he's done. Track and field, swimming, basketball, you name it, it's all done for competitive advantage, and for the most part is accepted as part of the game.

Well, competitive advantage is the driving force in our world as well. Parents enrolling their 3 year olds in school and learning centers so that they can get into the best colleges later in life. Parents lying about the childrens' ages so that they can stay back a year and be better than the other kids in their class or sport. Must have more; must be better. That's a lot of pressure on the kids and a lot of stress on the parents. From parents fighting with coaches, kids beating other kids with bats, parents yelling at their kids and others, it makes me wonder where this world is going. Then, there's the other side. The side that says kids can't play tag because there will be some kids who aren't as fast as the others who will always be "it". They'll have their feelings and egos hurt and will have to deal with that later in life. There are those who say everyone must be a winner. Well, believe it or not, that isn't the case in life. There are those with better skills who will exceed in different ways. Just because someone isn't as fast as someone else in tag, doesn't mean they don't excel in other ways. We should encourage children to excel in what they're good at and not force them into things they aren't. That's not to say to never have them try new things but if it's obvious that they don't have the aptitude for certain things, chances are they never will. People have enough stress without having to try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Growing up, we learned to deal with our own issues. If an adult other than our parents caught us doing something we shouldn't be doing, generally they told our parents and let our parents deal with us. Parents behaved at sporting events. There was no name calling, no cursing. Professional athletes, for the most part, behaved liked honorable people, people you could look up to and call a hero. I don't want to say it was a simpler life, but it was a different life. We played sports and had fun. Yes, there was competition, but you competed on natural ability. Some people were better than others. It hurt when we didn't win, but we moved on. We didn't think about cheating so that we could win that next game. Life is about victory and defeat. Every day we have battles with certain things and we win or lose and we move on. If we win by cheating, where's the value in that? You don't need to worry about getting caught if you don't cheat. There's a lot of value in that.