It was a bad week for three athletes under stress, but every once in a while, even these men and women we put on pedestals have to take a fall and must be held responsible for their actions.
The utter absence of accountability threatens to wreck sports in the ’90s–more than greed or arrogance of sloth. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Passing the buck is easier than passing the ball. The stronger the bodies, the weaker the souls.
But there was Tommy Morrison, a boxer brave enough to admit that he had contracted the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, because of an irresponsible, irrational lifestyle.
And there was Larry Jackson, the 17-year-old transfer from Oak Park, ruled ineligible to play ball for Farragut after two alleged tamper tantrums.
And there was Jessica Foschi, 15, banned from Olympic swimming competition because she tested positive for an anabolic steroid.
There is no joy in any of these circumstances. There are only lessons.
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“I thought I was bulletproof,” said Morrison.
But don’t they all? Isn’t that the way of the sports world now?
It has gotten so completely out of whack that when coach Bob Knight kicks Sherron Wilkerson off the Indiana basketball team after his arrest on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge of beating his girlfriend, who takes the brunt of the criticism? Bob Knight. Too strict. Evidently, though, he would rather lose a game than his values. But loud as he might be, Knight is a voice in the wilderness. At the very time the Jackson affair was heating up in the tough downtown section, NFL millionaires were meeting at O’Hare to bless a move from Cleveland to Baltimore by a weasel, Art Modell.
The message was identical. In sports, professional or amateur, you do whatever you can get away with instead of what’s right.
Larry Jackson might need help, but not as urgently as the sick system of which he is a product. For every Michael Jordan, there are dozens of role models who don’t consider themselves full-fledged big-leaguers unless they defy authority, insult fans or defame teammates and opponents.
Jackson broke no existing rules. He didn’t jump through a mere loophole. He leaped through a canyon, and while the Illinois High School Association sat there like a potted plant, this teenager was used as he exploited the moral wasteland.
It took Paul Vallas, chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, to dredge up that dirty word. Ethics.
Willie Nelson, the Farragut coach, probably doesn’t understand. He’s the character-builder who predicted that if Jackson weren’t allowed to bounce a ball, he’ll probably hit the streets and start selling drugs. Then Nelson’s assistant, Ron Eskridge, ripped into the media. Terrific.
Where do these people get their teaching certificates? In a hardware store? If only their spheres of influence began and ended with teaching America’s youth how to take a jump shot. Would they care about Jackson if he were only 5 feet 7 inches tall?
Jackson may yet be cleared, and Foschi will have her day in court too. But how ironic that it was United States swimming honchos who pushed for stiffer doping tests because of all those amazing little Chinese waterbugs, and now one of our own prodigies sets off the sirens.
Jessica Foschi says she doesn’t get it. Maybe it was sabotage, and maybe she’s being perfectly honest. Then again, instead of performance-enhancing drugs, maybe athletes of the next generation will try something better. Maybe they’ll try truth serum.
“I thought I was bulletproof,” repeated Tommy Morrison. “But I wasn’t. I was stupid.”
He can say that again, and probably will, until he dies, too young.