One example of an issue in the history of sport relating to sportsmanship comes from a few years ago when the head coach from the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick was caught cheating. Being held high above people’s heads, Belichick was the face of the Patriots. He meant a lot to the city with bringing them super bowls and influencing coaches from all over the world to be like him in everyway. Once the news broke of Bill Belichick cheating in order to win games, it put a burden on his reputation as a person and as a coach who was put on a high pole as an ideal coach. Coach Belichick took the abuse pretty well, after the news came out, he put out a press conference and talked about why and did what he did and apologized to all the people who he had offended. Being a head coach in a professional league can be very stressful and a lot is put on the person, so it would seem that a coach would do almost anything in order to win. It seems cheating is a major issue in sport that has gone about through decades and has gone unnoticed unless if the team who is cheating is the team that is winning championships.
But is the only question; is Bill Belichick the only cheater among the NFL coaches? To answer this question I will use a synonym for this that a friend who is with a police force described to me. That there are plenty of criminals, but only the dumb criminals get caught. Meaning that a large majority if not all of the NFL coaches cheat in some form or another, but are smart enough not to get caught. Cheating should not be tolerated because America’s youth watches what happens and that these instances are showing poor sportsmanship. Which would be exercised in future sporting events.
Just say by the off chance that a team is on a winning streak without even setting foot in the cheating ring and they are confronted against a team like the New England Patriots with Bill Belichick as a head coach who has come out of the closet and admitted to cheating. And the team who is true ends up losing to the cheating team, how do you think the head coach of the losing team would feel? That the head coach would then question if he lost because the better team won or that the other team cheated to win. The head coach would probably feel that it was an unfair win on the other team’s part and that the lose should be taken away from the losing column and should be placed with a Did Not Play game. Or on the other side of the totem pole, whenever Bill Belichick won a football game the question would come up that if the coach won the game by his coaching ability or if he some how cheated. All in all, there is no answer to cheating in sports and sportsmanship is terminally finished. I think we need to accept sports for what they are, winning at any cost necessary.
