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By
Real Estate Agent with Aubrey and Associates Realty

Reading yesterday of another sports scandal as up to 25 members of a college football team won't be eligible to play in a bowl game because they cheated to get good enough grades to be eligible to play football.  This, on top of what has gone on in baseball with the steroids along with the videotaping of opponents signs during a professional football game should not come as a surprise to anyone.  Let's face it they have gotten away with it.  The have told us as a society that it is ok to take advantage of the rules and do what ever it takes to win. 

I will never be one to say that life should be fair, or even that life is fair.  It isn't, that is plain and simple.  That is why rules of behavior were and are established, so that everyone can participate on reasonably equal ground.  Does that mean that I will ever hit a baseball like Barry Bonds?  Absolutely not, I have never had the talent that he has had, before or after steriods.  Will I ever be able to run like Marion Jones, again no.  I am not in good enough shape to compete at that level with those athletes.  By the same token I could never pitch like Andy Pettitte nor coach like Bill Belicheck, that isn't the point. 

The point is that there are people who are nearly as good at what they do as the afore mentioned athletes and coaches.  The rest of the playing field is (or should be) trying to better themselves to compete with those individuals.  The fact that these players and coaches feel that they have to cheat to succeed should indicate that there are many other people at or near their level of excellence.  The damage to us is that it says that even if you do cheat, it doesn't really matter.  The baseball players got paid, some won world championships some set records, and the reality is that nothing happened to them.  The Patriots are on the verge of completing a perfect season, one in which yea they paid a fine and lost a draft pick next year, but in the year that they were caught competing unfairly, they could go undefeated.  

This precedent, though not new sets a terrible example, especially to the youth of this country as well as other countries.  Who do the young people today look up to for an example of putting in the extra work to be great at what ever they do?  Who do we as professional adults look to as peers of excellence?  I am not saying that everyone in this era in sports cheats, that is too broad of a brush to paint with.  There are great athletes and individuals competing in many levels, Tiger Woods comes to mind, no hint of cheating in his past.  The problem that I see, is that there are too many that have taken the easy way out and cheated, and gotten away with it, so those individuals are just as plentiful as those that have risen to the top with integrity. 

I believe that our society is lesser for allowing this to continue.  Maybe Florida State should forfeit the games that these ineligible football players participated in?  Would that change the thought process of the next person that looks to cheat on exams to be eligilble?  What if once proven that illegal drugs were used, the numbers accumulated in those seasons where those drugs were used were erased?  Records set while under the influence of steriods would be nullified and restored to those that competed according to the rules.  Would that solve the problem? 

I doubt it, we have become too focused on the now, and not focused on the consequences of what we do now.  Whether we like it or not, everything that we do has consequences.  We are seeing some of the results of mortgages that were too easily obtained, or homes that had their prices "pumped" up to make investors more money.  Real estate used to be thought of as a great long term investment, not a "day trader" commodity.  It is still a great long term investment, if it is purchased as such.  It will have periods of rising and declining value, but almost always will, in the long term, make the purchaser money. 

Our profession has taken some hits in the media, and by those discounters that have become the "darlings" of the media.  The best way to combat these attacks is to be in it for the long haul, think about the consequences of our actions, and prove our worth to our clients by protecting their interests above our own.  The athletic world has taken some wrong paths, maybe it is a good time for the business world, especially our business world to show the way that it has to be done.  I hope that this blog makes sense, it seemed to while I was thinking about it. 

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Comments (3)

asdf zcxv
Keller Williams Realty - Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor Area Real Estate

Yep it makes sense to me.  Was it FL?  I didn't see the story as yet.  I am disappointed and it's like the disappointment when the UM basketball fab five were in trouble.  It makes me very sad.

I love going to FL games but they have been in trouble before.  I remember! Hummm doesn't sound good if the stories are true. 

 

Dec 18, 2007 10:44 PM
asdf zcxv
Keller Williams Realty - Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor Area Real Estate

Yep it makes sense to me.  Was it FL?  I didn't see the story as yet.  I am disappointed and it's like the disappointment when the UM basketball fab five were in trouble.  It makes me very sad.

I love going to FL games but they have been in trouble before.  I remember! Hummm doesn't sound good if the stories are true. 

 

Dec 18, 2007 10:44 PM
Matthew Zgonc
Aksland Real Estate - Modesto, CA
Realtor, CFS, CVS
Very true.  One bad action can erase a whole bunch of good ones. We have to conduct ourselves  professionally in  public.
Dec 19, 2007 01:28 AM