Sports Outside the Vacuum

I realized something about my obsession with sports a couple of years ago. It was my outlet.  Too often, I have neglected my responsibility as world-citizen to consume political, economic, and international news to consume SportsCenter. I know that I am not the only to type in ESPN.com before CNN.com.  I know I am not the only one to watch a 30 for 30 before watching a documentary with social implications.  However, I never felt overly guilty about this because I knew it is was my getaway from the real world.  Nobody can be survive the constant pressure of our countless obligations.  Hell, I am ignoring a problem set to write this blog post that will probably be read by 30 people.  For me, the opportunity to go to the gym and shoot hoops, to watch a college basketball game, or see the Seattle Mariners inevitably lose, was too tempting of a social escape. Luckily it was justifiable because as I would look into the crowd of that Mariner game, I could see 20,000 others doing exactly as I was doing.

Maybe that is why these last two weeks have been so hard for me as a sports fan.  The alleged sexual abuse by Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and the subsequent removal of Joe Paterno has become one of the biggest scandals of the last ten years.  Following this news, came an abuse scandal at The Citadel that was eerily similar to the Penn State scandal.  Then came the resurfacing of abuse case Syracuse Associate Head Coach Bernie Fine.  After watching this gut-wrenching video, I realized that line between the real world and my outlet had thinned greatly.  By no means am I victim, and I am obviously unprepared to know what is the truth in many of these cases.  What I do know is that I am no longer to view sports as a pure entity.  Lawyers and an anti-trust law are now the two things dictating whether we will see an NBA season.  Football got in the way of the real goal of an academic institution to nurture young adults and help them succeed.  Tiger Woods' sex life got bigger than the entire sport of golf.

Maybe I was living naively. For so long, I was able to ignore the stories of tragedy, crime, and gossip and instead focused on the highlight reels, games, and statistics.  Yesterday, it hit me. I can no longer view sports in a vacuum. Every college football game is stained by scandal, every NBA game is stained by greed, every Big East basketball game will be stained by the conference realignment and this scandal.  My love of sports is stained.