By Dr. Kate Scannell
First published in print: 10/28/2012
I'm going to ask my nephew to read the 202-page report issued last week by the United States Anti-Doping Agency that summarizes the doping allegations against cyclist Lance Armstrong by his own teammates and entourage. It's a powerful document that stimulates critical thinking about sportsmanship and athletic competition, and it raises important ethical issues about athletes' pervasive use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Because the report cobbles together stories from professional athletes who broke a code of silence that had tethered them to a troubling team secret, it also offers insights about these issues from the experiences of intimate insiders. No aunt or school health counselor can compete with that for the prized attention of a serious young man trying to imagine what life might be like as a professional athlete.
At times, the USADA report reads like William Golding's classic novel, "Lord of the Flies." On a literal level, we learn what happens when a group of (mostly) men are sequestered on an island (team) of their own making and self-governance, without effective supervision by oversight agencies that are supposed to enforce publicly agreed-upon rules of conduct.
In short order, leaders emerge within the team and regularly break those rules. A new regime supplants the old order and, ultimately, everyone comes to fear retaliation if they don't comply with the new norm. So they take the secret handshake -- or the blood doping, the growth hormone, the steroids. Read More
First published in print: 10/28/2012
I'm going to ask my nephew to read the 202-page report issued last week by the United States Anti-Doping Agency that summarizes the doping allegations against cyclist Lance Armstrong by his own teammates and entourage. It's a powerful document that stimulates critical thinking about sportsmanship and athletic competition, and it raises important ethical issues about athletes' pervasive use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Because the report cobbles together stories from professional athletes who broke a code of silence that had tethered them to a troubling team secret, it also offers insights about these issues from the experiences of intimate insiders. No aunt or school health counselor can compete with that for the prized attention of a serious young man trying to imagine what life might be like as a professional athlete.
At times, the USADA report reads like William Golding's classic novel, "Lord of the Flies." On a literal level, we learn what happens when a group of (mostly) men are sequestered on an island (team) of their own making and self-governance, without effective supervision by oversight agencies that are supposed to enforce publicly agreed-upon rules of conduct.
In short order, leaders emerge within the team and regularly break those rules. A new regime supplants the old order and, ultimately, everyone comes to fear retaliation if they don't comply with the new norm. So they take the secret handshake -- or the blood doping, the growth hormone, the steroids. Read More