Why is winning so important and honor is not?
Today I was watching a soccer match between the countries of Russia and the Netherlands. As you can see my Saturday was not very exciting since I was watching soccer around noon. Anyway, the score was 0-0 starting the second half when all of a sudden a penalty was called on the Netherlands team. Russia took what is called a free kick and about a minute later scored the games first goal. Russia went on to win the game 3-1.
The penalty that was called was laughable. I am not a fan of either team so my judgement is not tainted. A defender on the Netherlands was defending a Russian with his arms at shoulder level. The Russian player all of a sudden fell to the ground like he was punched in the face. Not only that, the Russian rolled around on the ground holding his face like he had a broken nose. A referee came over and not only awarded a free kick for the Russians, but gave the defender a yellow card. For all you non soccer fans, a yellow card is something bad. The replay clearly showed that not only did the player on defense not hit him but the Russian actually initiated the contact. Right after the free kick was taken the Russian who was acting like he was so hurt was running around like nothing happened. What a miracle. Or severe acting job.
Fans of soccer knows this happens in everygame. It is such a shame. But this sort of stuff is not only reserved for soccer but all sports. In basketball, 280 lb. men fall to the ground when run into by someone half their size. This is called flopping. Instead of playing good defense, they just fall to the ground even if just hit by a feather and then the ref calls a foul. So much for sportsmanship right? Instead, it is winning at all costs, not by talent. I call it cheating.
Cheating happens in all sports. Whether it is steroids, corked bats, etc. To me, this is cheapening sports to such an extreme that it is ruining them. There is just so many sport scandals going on right now. Steroids, Spygate, fixing games, etc. Now in baseball where records mean everything, you have the homerun king indicted for steroids. This means he is accused of cheating to get that record.
But if you step back out of sports and look at the rest of the world you notice that in all aspects of life people are trying to lie or cheat to win. Hillary Clinton lied about being attacked in Bosnia but in this case it hurt her when she was caught lying. Winning at all costs has been a long tradition in politics and probably always will be. Remember Dan Rather presenting fake documents in order to try and hurt President Bush's re-election bid? It is just harder to get away with it now since there is so many ways to prove someone is lying.
People cheat or lie in politics, business, divorce settlements, school, lawsuits, in all aspects of life. But at the end of the day when these people look in the mirror, are they ashamed at what they did or are they just plain happy they did whatever it took to win? It is a shame that people don't play with honor and say let the best man win. Instead it is whether I am better then you or not, I am going to do anything to win because cheating to win is better then losing with honor.
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