This post was written by Zach Marmolejo.
About a month ago, disgraced cycling champion and wrist-band fashion pioneer Lance Armstrong admitted to Oprah he had been doping during his unprecedented run of seven consecutive Tour de France titles.
Not long after that, it came to light that at least five well-decorated Major League Baseball players were connected to a doping clinic in south Florida. Even the Super Bowl was not without performance-enhancing controversy (I’m looking at you Ray Lewis).
The public’s reaction was the standard shunning on social media websites and destroying products that bared the scarlet letter(s), once their favorite athlete’s name.
As a pretty devoted sports fan myself, my only question to the public is what did you expect? We shouldn’t be burning these athletes at the stake; they were just actors playing a part.
If Daniel-Day Lewis were to admit to eating the bones of Abraham Lincoln tomorrow would everyone who saw "Lincoln" be calling for his head on a stake and his Oscar be revoked? No.
Did everyone stop listening to Elvis when they found out that his body was made of nothing but pills and hoagies? We didn’t, instead we gave him his own stamp.
So what is the difference? Athletes are paid to be the best in their respective sports, to entertain us and most importantly to win.
Whenever people go to any type of sporting event, they want to see outcomes only seen in video games. They paid good money to see athletes like former MLB MVP, and doping suspect, Ryan Braun crank out home runs reaching the stratosphere. They want to see Ray Lewis bury QBs into the turf with a sack, not gently caress him down.
The only reason athletes take performance-enhancing drugs is they are trying to keep up with the fans and team owners' high expectations of them.
Stop throwing out those Livestrong bracelets; the cycling world is so riddled with doping that they might as well make it mandatory. Lance and every other athlete on performance-enhancing drugs were just playing a part we paid them to play.
So when the next performance-enhancing story breaks, instead of disgracing our sports heroes let us instead embrace them for trying to give us the best performance an actor could give.
Not long after that, it came to light that at least five well-decorated Major League Baseball players were connected to a doping clinic in south Florida. Even the Super Bowl was not without performance-enhancing controversy (I’m looking at you Ray Lewis).
The public’s reaction was the standard shunning on social media websites and destroying products that bared the scarlet letter(s), once their favorite athlete’s name.
As a pretty devoted sports fan myself, my only question to the public is what did you expect? We shouldn’t be burning these athletes at the stake; they were just actors playing a part.
If Daniel-Day Lewis were to admit to eating the bones of Abraham Lincoln tomorrow would everyone who saw "Lincoln" be calling for his head on a stake and his Oscar be revoked? No.
Did everyone stop listening to Elvis when they found out that his body was made of nothing but pills and hoagies? We didn’t, instead we gave him his own stamp.
So what is the difference? Athletes are paid to be the best in their respective sports, to entertain us and most importantly to win.
Whenever people go to any type of sporting event, they want to see outcomes only seen in video games. They paid good money to see athletes like former MLB MVP, and doping suspect, Ryan Braun crank out home runs reaching the stratosphere. They want to see Ray Lewis bury QBs into the turf with a sack, not gently caress him down.
The only reason athletes take performance-enhancing drugs is they are trying to keep up with the fans and team owners' high expectations of them.
Stop throwing out those Livestrong bracelets; the cycling world is so riddled with doping that they might as well make it mandatory. Lance and every other athlete on performance-enhancing drugs were just playing a part we paid them to play.
So when the next performance-enhancing story breaks, instead of disgracing our sports heroes let us instead embrace them for trying to give us the best performance an actor could give.
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