Sports

Tiger Woods and his infidelities have made front page headlines for months.  The media hoopla over this scandal has gotten me thinking about other scandals in sports.  It’s not that I agree with anything he’s done in his personal life, I believe strongly in the sanctity of marriage, but perhaps if we hadn’t put him on a pedestal, we wouldn’t be so upset when he fell off.  

All we really knew about Tiger was that he was a great golf player.  We pretended we knew what kind of person he was, but he was a celebrity, and celebrities have shown time and time again that who they are in the spotlight is not necessarily who they are at home.  Adultery is rampant in our country, so it shouldn’t surprise us that rich, successful, young, and good looking celebrities would take advantage of their status in the way that Tiger, and many others before him (Kobe Bryant), have done. 

Perhaps if we were to look at the history of sports scandals, Tiger might come out looking a little better.  This admittedly subjective list of the ten greatest American sports scandals doesn’t include any personal scandals.  It includes only those scandals that threatened the integrity of the whole sport. These are the true cheats and villains of sports history.  

Pete Rose gambling scandal-  Pete Rose was one of the greatest players in baseball history.  He would be in the Hall of Fame easily if it wasn’t for this great scandal, which got him kicked out of baseball forever.  I rank this pretty high on the scandal list when someone who would have been a baseball legend for all time is stripped of all his grandeur and fame because of his despicable, unsportsmanlike behavior.  The crime?  Rose gambled on baseball games during the ‘85, ‘86, and ‘87 seasons.  Gambling on your own sport, your own team, is about as low as it gets in sports.  

The 1919 World Series-  Six players on the Chicago White Sox team were caught conspiring with gamblers to lose the world series.  Those involved were all banned from baseball forever. This almost crushed the popularity of the whole sport, and were it not for Babe Ruth in the 20’s, it very well might have.  

Hornung and Karras NFL gambling- In 1963 the NFL had it’s own gambling scandal.  Paul Hornung, a running back from the Packers, and Lions All-Pro defensive tackle Alex Karras bet on several games.  Far from the long-reaching consequences of baseball, the NFL simply had the two sit out for a season.  Hornung was later elected into the Hall of Fame.  Fans and officials apparently forgot and forgave in this case.

Southern Methodist University pays under the table-  SMU created a fund for it’s players to receive large cash payouts monthly.  The head coach, assistant coach, and athletic director all resigned but received large sums of money to keep quiet about the program.  Once the NCAA heard about the scandal, the school had it’s entire 1987 season cancelled.  This scandal and the punishment handed out have set the stage for the importance of keeping amateur, college athletes truly in the amateur category.  In this case, SMU has served as a strong warning against other college programs that would otherwise have tried similar tactics for recruiting and keeping college players.  

College Basketball Point Shaving-  In 1950 the City College of New York basketball team won the NIT and the NCAA tournament. Gamblers saw the potential to make big money by bribing players on the favored team to miss a few shots to make sure the team did not exceed the spread in their victory. Some of the players even served jail time for this. Apparently this wasn’t enough to curtail the practice, as more scandals of a similar type were exposed in 1962, 1981, 1997, and 1998.

Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan-  in the 1994 Olympic games Tonya Harding, an American skater, paid thugs to injure her main competition, Nancy Kerrigan, another American skater.  Harding claimed it was her boyfriend that hired the thugs, but most people believe that she knew and approved of the attack.  The Olympics, while competitive, are supposed to be world-wide platforms of good will and sportsmanship.   The world was shocked that a competitor would take such action against another competitor, especially from the same country. 

1980 Boston Marathon-  Rosie Ruiz won the 26.2 mile race, but did so by starting the race and hopping on the subway.  She went back to the race for the final mile and finished without breaking a sweat.  Marathon runners are some of the toughest people on earth, masters of pushing themselves to their limits, so a cheat of this kind was devastating to all of the participants who worked for years to prepare for the run.  

The BALCO scandal-  Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative was a company that  provided tetrahydrogestrinone, (unknown and undetectable to sports authorities at the time) to a lot of professional sports players accoss several different sports. When the government started investigating the company, they handed over lists of athletes involved. 

Among the cheaters: MLB players Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Benito Santiago, Jeremy Giambi, Armando Rios, and Bobby Estalella.  Olympic athletes John McEwen, Kevin Toth, C.J. Hunter, Dwain Chambers, Tim Montgomery, Raymond J. Smith, Marion Jones, Zhanna Block Kelli White, Shane Mosley, and Regina Jacobs.  Cyclist Tammy Thomas, most of the Oakland Raiders team including Bill Romanowski, Chris Cooper, Tyrone Wheatley, Barrett Robbins, and Dana Stubblefield. This scandal has had lasting impact on all sports, bringing even greater scrutiny to the issue of performance enhancing drugs.  

Mike Tyson disqualified for brutal cannibalism-  Ok, so maybe it wasn’t cannibalism, but it was certainly one of the most brutal acts we’ve ever seen in sports. Tyson literally bit off the ear of opponent Evander Holyfield in a boxing match.  He was disqualified from the match and fined $3 million, but that’s all the disciplinary action that was taken, even though a riot broke out in the confusion after the match. Boxing is, after all, a brutal sport and the whole thing probably boosted ratings.

 Salt Lake City bribes Olympic Committee- In 1995 Salt Lake City bribed the International Olympic Committee to ensure that the games would be held there in 2002.  They gave out millions of dollars worth of bribes in the form of ski vacations, plastic surgery, Super Bowl tickets, and cash.  This is not the first time the Olympics have been involved in bribery scandals, but these were the most extensive, costly, and high-profile bribes in Olympic history.  Ten members of the Committee were expelled, and another ten were sanctioned.