When did merely trying to get a competitive edge in sports turn into winning at all costs and cheating? I remember when sports competition used to have a smudge or two on it, but today it's stained, abused and disrespected. Gone are the days of believing the outcome of every game, every competition is on the up and up. What other conclusion can you come too when you hear that even the artistic ballet of figure skating is marred by corruption. Add to that, steroid use in baseball, drug taking across all sports, illegal recruiting and paying college athletes, lying about a player's age in Little League and payoffs to Olympic officials and it looks and smells worse then week old garbage sitting in the summer sun. It's rotten and it stinks.

I fully realize that when humans do anything, then bad things can happen. But sports are the last frontier of honest effort. There should be no doubt that honest hard work and effort in competing should result in a fair outcome. There should be no doubt. But, that expectation is now gone, probably forever. Fairness in sports is another expectation destroyed by greed and a moral competitive compass gone haywire. The only hope for fairness redemption is to understand why it's happening and to correct the reasons for it.

Identifying the reasons for cheating is easy. Understanding them is challenging. And, changing the attitude and actions are painful. While restoring honesty in sports needs to be an across the board, total effort, it'll have to start on an athlete to athlete, sport to sport basis.

Cheating has evolved into epidemic proportions because we want shortcuts, we're greedy for the rewards, financial and otherwise, sports brings, and society now only recognizes winners, not those who finished second or gave a great effort. The media, fans and society in general celebrate success in such a way that the feeling of winning, no matter how it was attained, is a far better feeling then the alternative. Finishing second is good, but who cares? It's no where near the feeling winning is, is the normal way of thinking today. Once that attitude becomes pervasive in our thinking, particularly for the athlete, then doing whatever it takes, including cheating, becomes an acceptable part of competing. It becomes just another part of their training process. At first I'm sure it's hard for the athlete to reconcile going from hard work and honest commitment to cutting corners and cheating. But, in time, rationalization, a lack of character and an overwhelming desire to enjoy the fruits of success and winning blinds the athlete to the wrongs of cheating.

Once the athlete and sports accepts cheating as a part of its makeup, then it becomes a vicious circle of addiction. Cheating leads to a false sense of security and success, which leads to recognition by the fans and media, which leads to financial and ego rewards, which leads to a continuation of cheating to keep it all going. Breaking that chain of cheating addiction is probably impossible now. While I'm an eternal optimist, in the final analysis I'm a realist when it comes to cheating in sports. That realism is anchored in the knowledge that professional athletes and sports are addicted to money. That even in "amateur" sports, even down to the Little League level, those athletes are addicted to the ego and joy rewards that comes with success. Collectively all athletes can now rationalize that cheating is just a part of the game, everyone does it, I have to do it to be able to compete and to win, and the feeling that goes along with it is worth the risk of being caught. It's competitive moral erosion that has no beginning and certainly has no end.

If I were to dwell on this then I would throw my hands in the air, say "sports is a cesspool", never do another Sports Byline show or read and watch sports again, and head to Turtle Island in Fiji to lead a monk like life counting the cocoanut population. But damn it, the eternal optimist side in me won't let me do that. Just about the time I'm about to chuck it all, something or some athlete comes along that makes me believe we can return to that time when sports only had a smudge or two instead of its current stain. Lance Armstrong overcomes cancer to win his fourth straight Tour de France. He does it the honest way, with desire, hard work and commitment. No drugs. No shortcuts. Damn you Lance, you ruined my dream of being a beach bum and saying, "To hell with sports, it's garbage anyway." Just when I was about to get out, they pulled me back in. Armstrong is but a small step, a flicker of hope, that athletes and sports will find a new moral, competitive compass heading. One that restores faith that an athlete's effort and the outcome of a game is on the up and up. If not, collecting seashells is my alternative.

I feel better now.

I'm Ron Barr.

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