College Football’s Brand At Stake, Ethics Expert Says

Ray Glier
Forbes.com
Originally posted 16 July 20

Here is an excerpt:

“What is the potential harm vs potential good? This the core ethical question,” Etzel said.

The caretakers of college athletics insist it is too early to be making decisions about canceling football this fall. They are allowing players to work out, coaches to scheme, and fans to dream until the last possible moment before they have to pull the plug. Their runway is growing short.

“To be certain—rigid in what is important—is very risky,” Etzel said in an email response to the ethical dilemma facing college administrators. “Decisions and potential mistakes of this magnitude have not been made in the past, so those running and influencing the show have no benchmarks.

“Presidents and other leaders need to responsibly step in to decide on their own—consistent with their job descriptions—just what the most useful, compassionate path is for each organization.”

If athletes get sick from the virus in workouts this summer and do not recover, or have permanent damage to their health, the college game will get hit with vitriol nationally like it has never seen before. Millions of people in the U.S. are college football fans, but not everyone worships the U. Coaches and administrators are going to be painted as money-thirsty villains. An athletic director, maybe a coach, is going to be scapegoated, then fired, if an athlete does not recover from the virus.

The info is here.

To cheat or not to cheat? Researchers uncover the moral dilemmas of doping

Press Release
University of Birmingham
Originally posted May 9, 2019

Elite athletes are less likely to take banned substances if they consider the morality of what they are doing, and not just the health consequences of doping, according to a new study led by the University of Birmingham and funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

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The researchers were also interested in finding out what factors might reduce these justifications, which would ultimately allow athletes to suppress their feelings of guilt and use banned substances. The key factor which seems to protect athletes from doping was moral identity. This means how important it was to the players to be a moral person, and how strong their moral values, such as being fair or honest, were. Those players who had a strong moral identity did not use justifications for doping, expected to feel more guilt for doping, and ultimately were less likely to dope.

The researchers also found that coaches' behavior, and the 'performance climate' in which athletes were training also had a significant effect on their doping likelihood. If coaches were creating a climate in which players who made a mistake were penalised, or if they gave undue attention to the best players, athletes were more likely to turn towards banned substances. The coach can therefore play an important role in doping prevention.

The research findings are forming the basis for anti-doping interventions aimed at challenging players' attitudes towards banned substances. Funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee, the team has developed a series of interventions which highlight the moral angle through stories of athletes who have been affected by these issues, and what it has meant for them, and for their team mates and families.

The pressor is here.

Michelle Beadle created a firestorm with her decision to no longer watch football

Jake Rili
Saturday Down South
Originally posted August 23, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

“I believe that the sport of football has set itself up to be in a position where it shows itself in the bigger picture to not really care about women,” Beadle said on the show. “As a woman I feel like a person who has been marginalized.

“And every single one of these stories that comes out, every single time, pushes me further and further away. I realize they don’t care, but for me it’s opened up my weekends. I appreciate you for giving that to me. I don’t care anymore. I’ve lost the ability to be surprised. You got three games. You could’ve been fired. They could’ve gotten away with not having to pay you a single dime. You survived it, and not only did you survive it, but you didn’t have the grace enough to at least look over the statement you were handed seven seconds before and pretend that you meant a single word in it. The entire thing is a disgrace.”

The info is here.

Ohio State places winning above morality by failing to fire Urban Meyer

Ryan Pawloski
The Daily Nebraskan
Originally published August 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

These off-field scandals were no secret back when Meyer was at Florida, and Ohio State showed that it was willing to look past them when it hired him a year after he left Gainesville.

It is evident that Ohio State kept Meyer because he wins, but the question still remains: Why did Ohio State fire Tressel after the 2011 tattoo scandal, but keep Meyer after knowing he kept a domestic abuser on his staff and lied about not knowing?

Tressel had a successful tenure as the Ohio State head coach from 2001-10 as he went 106-22 — 94-22 after NCAA sanctions — and won five Big Ten titles and one national title in 2002. Many would think that Ohio State would have kept Tressel just like it did with Meyer because he won, too.

The answer is simple. Meyer has been better for the Buckeyes than Tressel was. Tressel was one of the top coaches in the country at Columbus and any program would have taken him if he was on the market, but Meyer was better.

Meyer retired from coaching in 2010 because of health and family reasons. About six months later, Tressel was forced out by Ohio State because of NCAA violations. An explanation for Tressel’s termination was that Meyer was on the market and Ohio State knew it had a chance to get the coach it always wanted.

The info is here.

Ethics and sport have long been strangers to one another

Kenan Malik
The Guardian
Originally posted March 8, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Today’s great ethical debate is not about payment but drugs. Last week, the digital, culture, media and sport select committee accused Bradley Wiggins of “crossing the ethical line” for allegedly misusing drugs allowed for medical purposes to enhance performance.

The ethical lines over drug use are, however, as arbitrary and irrational as earlier ones about payment. Drugs are said to be “unnatural” and to provide athletes with an “unfair advantage”. But virtually everything an athlete does, from high-altitude training to high-protein dieting, is unnatural and seeks to gain an advantage.

EPO is a naturally produced hormone that stimulates red blood cell production, so helping endurance athletes. Injections of EPO are banned in sport. Yet Chris Froome is permitted to sleep in a hypoxic chamber, which reduces oxygen in the air, forcing his body to produce more red blood cells. It has the same effect as EPO, is equally unnatural and provides an advantage. Why is one banned but not the other?

The article is here.

Ethicists unpack the argument for why doping should be kept out of sports

Olivia Goldhill
Quartz
Originally published August 21, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Bioethicist Thomas Murray, who was chair of Ethical Issues Review Panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency for many years, says that doping “short-circuits the connection between talent, dedication, and performance in sport. It takes control and responsibility away from the athlete and gives it to the chemist or gene therapist or whoever’s manipulating the athlete’s body and physiology.”

Allowing doping would likely lead to a pharmaceutical race, with ever more effective drugs changing athletes’ ability. And even if athletes were able to take drugs safely under the supervision of doctors, Murray points out that still-growing teenagers mimicking their idols would face far greater risks.

Some sporting competitions might decide to allow certain drugs, he says, but to allow doping in the Olympics would make it impossible to compete without the help of pharmaceuticals.

The article is here.

Brain stimulation in sport: is it fair?

By Nick Davis
The Conversation
Originally published March 16, 2016

If I tried to sell you a drink or a tablet, claiming it would make you run faster or improve your tennis serve, you would be suspicious. Taking a supplement to boost performance in sport feels like cheating, and it generally is.

However, new advances in neuroscience have pointed the way to performance enhancement by stimulating the activity of the brain. Mild electrical stimulation using electrodes placed on the head – called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, makes the brain more or less active, and may lead to long-lasting changes in brain processing.

The article is here.

Why it’s time to legalise doping in athletics

By Julian Savulescu
The Conversation
Originally posted August 28, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

Those athletes who are clean face a significantly doped field, and a climate of denial. They face a perverse dilemma: they must choose to either live with the disadvantage and accept the probable financial losses as a result, or to join the cheaters. If they do that, they face the risk of complete ruin as a scapegoat if they are caught. US runner Justin Gatlin, for example, has complained that previous doping bans have led to biased and unfair coverage of his performances.

It is not as though sport is somehow bereft of human struggle or magnificence. The only thing that is bad about sport today is that some athletes are getting a small advantage that others aren’t, and people are regularly getting tossed out or brought under a cloud by rules that are unfit for purpose.

The entire article is here.

Should nutritional supplements and sports drinks companies sponsor sport? A short review of the ethical concerns

By Simon M. Outram and Bob Stewart
J Med Ethics doi:10.1136/medethics-2014-102147

Abstract

This paper proposes that the sponsorship of sport by nutritional supplements and sport drinks companies should be re-examined in the light of ethical concerns about the closeness of this relationship. A short overview is provided of the sponsorship of sport, arguing that ethical concerns about its appropriateness remain despite the imposition of severe restrictions on tobacco sponsorship. Further, the paper examines the main concerns about supplement use and sports drinks with respect to efficacy, health and the risks of doping. Particular consideration is given to the health implications of these concerns. It is suggested that they, of themselves, do not warrant the restriction of sponsorship by companies producing supplements and sports drinks. Nevertheless, it is argued that sports sponsorship does warrant further ethical examination—above and beyond that afforded to other sponsors of sport—as sport sponsorship is integral to the perceived need for such products. In conclusion, it is argued that sport may have found itself lending unwarranted credibility to products which would otherwise not necessarily be seen as beneficial for participation in sports and exercise or as inherently healthy products.

The entire article is here.

Should We Teach Plato in Gym Class?

By Mark Edmundson
The New York Times
Originally published August  15, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Evidence of our neglect is everywhere. Day after day we see athletes, especially male athletes, behaving badly. The players of the most violent sports, football in particular, are too often finding their way to the front pages of the newspaper for crimes like rape and assault. These are young men who have been encouraged to develop speed and strength and, most of all, aggression. Their spiritedness has been amped up by their training.

We need a more thoughtful and sound philosophy of educating the body and the spirit than we currently possess. The athletes who are raising their quotient of thymos with every collision need to be helped to understand what a wonderful but dangerous power they are unleashing in themselves.

The entire story is here.

‘Don’t Tell Coach’: Playing Through Concussions

By Jan Hoffman
The New York Times - Well
Originally published November 5, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

An extensive report about sports-related concussions in young people, released last week by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, made recommendations that included bolstering research, collecting data, examining injury protocols and educating the public. But the report identified one particularly stubborn challenge: the “culture of resistance” among high school and college athletes, who may be inclined to shrug off the invisible injuries and return immediately to the field.

“There is still a culture among athletes,” the report said, “that resists both the self-reporting of concussions and compliance with appropriate concussion management plans.”

The entire story is here.

The Morality of Sport-Hatred

By Joshua Shepherd
Practical Ethics
Published on November 7, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

The question: is sport-hatred morally permissible?

Obviously Updyke’s crime crossed moral boundaries. I am not asking about the moral permissibility of all actions motivated by sport-hatred. I am asking whether sport-hatred itself is morally permissible: do those of us who frequently undergo strong bouts of sport-hatred exhibit a moral defect? Am I morally blameworthy because I hate (citing teams here to avoid naming names) Arsenal, Duke University’s basketball team, or the Philadelphia Eagles?

Hatred itself is rarely if ever praiseworthy. Hate-crimes are taken to be especially odious crimes, and come with increased sentences. And hatred in daily life is frequently an overreaction, based on biased or otherwise mistaken judgments about the nature of some agent, some agent’s character, some action.

The entire story is here.

Gag Orders on Sexuality

By Allie Grasgreen

Inside Higher Ed

Originally posted on May 23, 2013

When Brittney Griner, Baylor University’s star basketball player and one of the most celebrated athletes in the history of the sport, came out publicly as gay last month, she was rather nonchalant about it. She didn’t write a Sports Illustrated cover story – à la professional basketball player Jason Collins, a few weeks later – she just sort of mentioned it in media interviews. Griner is “someone who’s always been open,” she said, with family, friends and teammates.

But, as Griner revealed a few weeks later, she wasn’t allowed to be open as much as she might have liked. That’s because Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey told her and her teammates not to talk publicly about their sexuality.

“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner told ESPN. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”

Griner's account followed on the heels of speculation that her coming out signaled a new age at Baylor – a private Christian university whose nondiscrimination policy does not cover sexual orientation and whose student handbook entry for “sexual misconduct” includes as examples of inappropriate actions "homosexual behavior" and participation in “advocacy groups which promote understanding of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Read more here.

Why We Should Talk About the Football Coach's Salary When Faculty are Let Go Read

by John Warner
Inside HigherEd - Blog - Just Visiting
Originally published January 23, 2013


Bowling Green State University recently announced that it would be cutting 100 faculty positions for next fall, more than 10% of the total number of full-time faculty.

I found out this news via Facebook, which really does seem to be the source (along with Twitter) of the majority of news and information that crosses my mental desk on any given day. A debate/discussion cropped up underneath the posting, and as happens someone invoked the salaries of football coaches, and how it seems unfair that 100 teachers will lose their jobs when coaches are making so much.

There was a debate/discussion about this, and it was generally agreed that maybe it was too simplistic or counterproductive to lament these imbalances as they are a fact of the way universities operate. Academics and athletics are separate, football programs bring in money that they get to use for themselves, and in the end, these realities are just a reflection of society’s values.

I agree that the situation at BGSU is a reflection of society’s values, which is why I think we need to bring up football and athletic departments every time faculty are cut, or furloughed, or denied raises for years on end, or we’re told that the treatment of adjunct faculty is “unlikely to change.”

The entire story is here.

MaleSurvivor Conference Examines Sexual Abuse in Sports

By Eric V. Copage
The New York Times
Originally published November 18, 2012

Here are some excerpts:

A dour procession of stories about sexual misconduct by coaches toward their male charges has come to light in recent months. Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Penn State, was sentenced in October to 30 to 60 years in prison on 45 counts of child molesting. Sugar Ray Leonard wrote in his autobiography last year that he was sexually molested by an Olympic boxing coach. The N.H.L. players Theo Fleury and Sheldon Kennedy were sexually abused as teenagers by their hockey coach Graham James.
      

The prevalence of sexual abuse among all boys 17 and under has been variously estimated to be as low as 5 percent and as high as 16 percent. For some of the millions of children who participate in sports nationwide, and their parents, sexual assault in a sports context has its own dynamic.

      

“Sports is a place where parents send their boys to learn skills, to learn how to be teammates and how to work together — to make boys stronger and healthier,” said Dr. Howard Fradkin, author of “Joining Forces,” a book about how men can heal from sexual abuse. “It’s the place where we send our boys to grow up. The betrayal that occurs when abuse occurs in sports is damaging because it destroys the whole intent of what they started out to do.”

 

The entire story is here.

Maine West High School Sued For Student Hazing, Sodomy 'Sanctioned By Coaches'

The Huffington Post
Originally published November 20, 2012

The family of a Illinois high school freshman is suing the Maine Township High School District 207, claiming that Maine West High School officials sanctioned hazing of the unnamed teen as part of a years-long ritual at the school.

The unidentified mother appeared at a news conference Monday wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses alongside attorney Antonio Romanucci.

"I thought my son would be safe at school," she said, according to WLS-TV. "You think when you drop off your son, it's a safe place to be. But I feel like the coaches should have kept him safe on the soccer field, and they didn't do that."

The mother adds that the acts -- and the school's failure to respond -- breaks Illinois state anti-bullying laws.

The lawsuit claims that the 14-year-old and at least two other boys were sexually assaulted during soccer practice in September -- during school hours and condoned by coaches. The complaint alleges that teammates shoved the three boys to the ground and beat them. The older players then held them down, pulled down their pants and underwear and sodomized them.



The entire story is here.

Sports Concussions & Psychology

Here is a brief video on psychologists' role in sports psychology and concussions.  The video features PPA's Drs. Rex Gatto and Don McAleer.

Teen Athletes Should Get Concussion Test Score Before Play

-- Robert Preidt

(HealthDay News) -- Individual concussion baselines need to be created for young athletes at the start of a playing season for them to be accurately diagnosed and treated if they suffer a concussion during the season, researchers report.

The investigators also noted that the sex of the players affects the scores on a standardized concussion assessment tool.

The study included 1,134 high school athletes in the Phoenix area who completed a brief questionnaire regarding their concussion history and were given a score based on the new Sport Concussion Assessment Tool-2 (SCAT2).

There were 872 males and 262 females, average age 15, included in the study. The predominant sports were football for the males and volleyball for the females.

Females scored significantly higher than males on the SCAT2 total score, and athletes with a prior history of concussion scored much lower on the SCAT2 than those with no history of concussion.

The findings were slated for presentation Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) in San Diego.

"Our results showed that otherwise healthy adolescent athletes do display some variability in results so establishing each player's own baseline before the season starts and then comparing it to test results following a concussion leads to more accurate diagnosis and treatment," study author Dr. Anikar Chhabra, of the Orthopaedic Clinic Association in Phoenix, said in an AOSSM news release.

"This data provides the first insight into how the SCAT2 scores can be used and interpreted as a sideline concussion tool and as an initial baseline analysis. With concussions accounting for approximately 9% of all high school athletic injuries, accurately utilizing assessments like these to quickly determine an athlete's return-to-play probability is critical to long-term athletic and educational performance," Chhabra said.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.