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Cheating is not a new thing, but it has recently become pandemic in the sports world. It permeates all levels of sports and seems to be worsening.
Athletes are regularly tested for banned substances, yet still they get caught. In baseball it's amphetamines, steroids and human growth hormone. In football it's steroids, and who knows what else. Cyclists are blood doping, injecting vitamins, and testosterone, and taking erythropoietin, commonly known as EPO. In track it's steroids, EPO, blood doping, and various stimulants. In cross country skiing the drug of choice seems to be EPO.
Cheating however doesn't end with the use of performance enhancing substances. In 1980 Rosie Ruiz won both the Boston and New York marathons, apparently by riding the subways. In 1989 the Bronx won the Little League World Series with a pitcher two years too old for the competition. The intellectually disabled Spanish basketball team won a gold medal at the 2000 Paralympics and then was promptly stripped of their medals when it was discovered that 10 of the 12 players were not handicapped in any way.
Although both fame and financial rewards sometimes influence cheating it seems to be more deeply ingrained in our culture than can be explained just by the promise of wealth.
We could talk here about Barry Bonds and whether or not apparent steroid use cheapens his achievements, perhaps even invalidates them. We could talk about entire teams that were removed from the Tour de France this year because a member of their team was caught cheating, or in one case lying. We could talk about the rash of drivers and crew chiefs that have been fined, suspended, and docked points this year in NASCAR. Pick a sport and we can talk about the individuals who with one degree of success or another have attempted to cheat the system to gain an advantage.
Instead we are going to talk about one referee in the NBA, and the potential fallout from some of what he has done. He officiated 704 regular season games and 15 playoff games. He was rated as one of the NBA's top tier officials in spite of having been investigated for off court behavior. Tim Donaghy refereed in the NBA for 13 seasons. He allegedly began betting on games that he was officiating in 2003. On Aug. 15 Donaghy pled guilty to two felony charges in federal court, conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce. He has agreed to pay a $500,000 fine and at least $30,000 in restitution, and will be sentenced on Nov. 9. Donaghy could face as much as 25 years in jail.
What court papers reveal is that in December of 2006, if not earlier, Donaghy began giving inside information to two gamblers who paid him $5,000 each time they won using the information he gave them. They also show that Donaghy bet on games that he officiated. It looks like he may have been involved in point shaving, and perhaps outright game-fixing.
Donaghy did not admit to actually fixing the outcome of games, and insisted that he was acting alone. I hope that he is a rogue ref as the league believes, and that over time this will blow over. Sadly the NBA has taken a big credibility hit, and the accusations and rumors are not going away quickly.
Complicating matters is the fact that Donaghy was one of the officials on May 12 during game three of the Spurs, Suns playoff series, a game that most observers felt was poorly officiated. For years conspiracy theorists have accused the NBA fixing playoff games in order to get better playoff matchups, or bigger market teams further along in the playoffs. Now people have ammunition to bolster these claims. At least in the foreseeable future it will be difficult for people to look at games that have blown calls, or individuals who get in early foul trouble without being suspicious of wrong doing.
This is bad for the NBA, and it's bad for local high school sports. Go to any ballgame and you will see people exercising their right to free speech while complaining about the officiating. Fans can be rude, and downright intimidating to officials, and this incident can only exacerbate the situation.
The officials I know are conscientious and hard working. High school officials don't get paid a lot of money for what they do, and most of them are trying to do a service for the athletes. It would be a shame if one dirty referee manages to cast a shadow of suspicion on the honest referees who allow sport to be what it is today.
It would also be sad if this makes it harder to recruit and keep officials. There is already a shortage of high school officials both locally and nationwide and anything that might make this worse is a bad thing.
Most officials really don't want to be in the spotlight, and they are painfully aware when they have made a mistake. No honest official wants to have a mistake he or she made affect the outcome of a game. The next time you go to a game and believe that you see an official make a mistake before you boo, or worse, ask yourself can I do any better. If you can do better then you are needed as an official. If the truth is that you really can't do any better then cut the officials some slack.
I don't believe that in high school athletics spectators should ever boo players, but Scotty Morrison, long-time referee-in-chief for the National Hockey League, has a point when he says, "boo the players, but leave the referees alone. They're doing a difficult job well and they don't need 5,000 assistants."
Officials are largely honest and doing the best they can. It is actually rare for a single bad call to decide the outcome of a game, and even rarer that an official would do it deliberately. Unfortunately it may be hard to remember that in the near future in light of what Donaghy has done.
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