All Hail the Sports Thief

Sports to me, as a player, are about after-school conditioning, ice packs and shin splints, early Saturday morning tournaments, teammates and competitive coaches, post-game snacks and pre-game chants. It's about hours of practice and preparation and even fewer hours of actual game time. The athlete understands the final product of one's work is not the scoreboard. There will always be more games--more wins and more losses. For the athlete, the sport has no conclusion--rather, it is an ongoing symphony that ends only when the conductor sets down his magician's wand.



Today, however, the spirit of sports has been confiscated by headliners and show-time specialists. Drug dopers, league violaters, public offenders, big contracts, and dog killers. When so much focus is placed on controversy and fancy contracts, the sport is diminished. For every athlete that makes the Blog Beat and ESPN headline news, there are thousands more who are doing what they do day in and day out--training hard and cultivating their craft.

Perhaps it's time for ESPN and other similar beasts to go to rehab, to return sports to its rightful owners--the athletes.