Integrity and sports -- strange bedfellows

Integrity is a trait in short supply nowadays. Reading news stories these days, there are a lot of folks showing a shocking lack of integrity. Even more shocking is our willingness to let people "off the hook" as easily. Not only people in supervisory positions but the general public. "What he does in his private life is his business." Hey, as long as coach keeps winning ball games, who cares if he a) cheats on his wife; b) pads his account with illegal money; c)smokes/shoots/snorts drugs; or d) sets up a "bounty system" to make a sporting event a 'life-altering' experience? Is integrity missing from the job description? The latest case involves University of Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino, who came under scrutiny last week after crashing his motorcycle with 25-year-old Jessica Dorrell on board; she is a university employee that he had hired and was formerly a member of the Razorback volleyball team. Petrino reportedly first lied to athletic director Jeff Long and said he was alone on the motorcycle. But later when it was about to be publicly announced that he had had a passenger, "Petrino released a statement ...(that) he didn’t want to admit the female passenger was with him on the bike because it was an 'inappropriate relationship,'” according to one news report. Petrino is married with four children. "My concern was to protect my family and a previous inappropriate relationship from becoming public,” he had said. Long placed Petrino on administrative leave just as spring football practice were drills were set to begin. What is the greatest mistake here? Is it Petrino's for an embarrassing accident involving a 25-year-old university employee not his wife? For lying to his athletic director and withholding the truth? Or is it ours for giving sports a free pass on the integrity issue? A Fox Sports Poll asked "Should Bobby Petrino be fired at the University of Arkansas?" As I write this, 52 percent of the 59,142 voters say "yes." Thirty-two percent say "no" and 17 percent say it's too early to tell. Pete Fiutak writes: "To be totally honest, after all the horrors of last year, as long as a college football controversy doesn’t involve the alleged sexual assault of children, I’m good. But beyond that, as long as the University of Arkansas and athletic director Jeff Long conduct a thorough investigation and aren’t kowtowing to the element that cares only about a winning football team, this should be a matter between Petrino, his family, Jessica Dorrell and her friends and family." Yes, and if integrity isn't a trait to be valued at the University of Arkansas, they can just sweep this under the rug. "Compared to recent college sports scandals, what Petrino did is a Petrino problem," Fiutak wrote. "While he represents the University of Arkansas, most of the parts of the story don’t and shouldn’t affect the school and are of a more personal nature than on a football coach level." Yes, consider it a "Petrino problem" and go on with the work of building the Hawgs' top-tier Division I football program. Integrity was already left bloodied on the professional field. Some 22 to 27 members of the New Orleans Saints National Football League team were found to have participated in a slush fund that paid bonuses or "bounties" for deliberately injuring opposing players or knocking them out of games. Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely for his role in "Bountygate," and head coach Sean Peyton received a year-long suspension without pay. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also levied an eight-game suspension of General Manager Mickey Loomis and it's six games out for Assistant Head Coach Joe Vitt. Punishment for the players is yet to be announced. Maybe they should take the opportunity to hire themselves a good lawyer. Yes, football is a violent game. Picture the menacing Bears linebacker Dick Butkus or the gap-toothed Packers' Ray Nitschke, uniforms covered in blood, and know that violence is synonymous with the game itself. But deliberately trying to injure others is a crime, and paying to hurt others is a mob tactic. Remember Oakland Raiders cornerback Jack Tatum, known as "The Assassin," whose hit on New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley in a 1978 preseason game left Stingley paralyzed from the chest down. And after ending Stingley's NFL career, Tatum went on to write three best-selling books narcisistically titled "They Call me Assassin" (1980); "The Still Call Me Assassin" (1989); and "Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum" (1996). Maybe the 'win-at-all-costs" pressure is just too great to expect coaches and players to be angels. Ohio State University head coach Jim Tressel resigned in 2011 after the NCAA investigated multiple violations. They included several players selling memorabilia to a tattoo parlor, a suspicious connection between football players and Columbus-area car dealers, and Tressel himself admitting he withheld information concerning ineligible players in 2010. Last year, Yahoo! Sports investigated University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro's claims of dealings with Hurricane players, which reportedly involved cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and more. Oh, but the list goes on and on. Carl Sandusky at Penn State (and JoPa's passive role). O.J. Simpson. And baseball's Barry Bonds. Mark McGwire. Sammy Sosa. Roger Clemens. Skating's Tonya Harding. The PGA's Tiger Woods. But all is not lost. There are exceptions and I wish they were the rule. Take Tim Tebow, now of the New York Jets, who was featured in a Super Bowl ad a couple years ago emphasizing the importance of human life. On Easter Sunday, a crowd estimated at 15,000-20,000 heard Tebow at the Celebration Church's Easter on the Hill prayer service in Georgetown, TX. He encouraged worshipers to share their Christian faith publicly. “My biggest prayer is to kind of make that cool again, for a high school kid to get on a knee and pray and it’s not something that’s unique or different and that it’s O.K. to be outspoken about your faith,” Tebow said. Wow. A fresh voice. A voice linking integrity and faith to sports that are so lacking and thirsting for it, especially when our younger generation is playing the game, yearning for role models and watching our every move.