My Sunday Feeling

You've got to think Bobby Petrino's week got a little easier Thursday. To the limited extent that an asshole like Petrino even cares about the torrent of criticism that has come down upon him after he left the Atlanta Falcons with 3 games on the schedule to coach the Arkansas Razorbacks, and there are many who would say that he could give two hoots in hell about what others think, the fact that the Mitchell investigation into steroid use in Major League Baseball probably provided a welcomed diversion of attention away from him. No matter how you slice it, this has not been one of the better weeks in sports.

But first of all, let's revisit an old issue that has been written about in this space on more than one occasion and generally when something like this pops up. When a coach-and it is always a coach-leaves a job before his contract expires, you always hear all of this blather about morality and the "sanctity of a contract." This is complete and total nonsense.

Here is Contract 101: Implicit in every contract is the right to breach. And when a party to the contract breaches, the only issue is how is the non-breaching party is to be compensated as a consequence of the breach, not whether the breacher is a lying scumbag. Period. Indeed, one could say that these employment contracts in Big Time Sports are "widely honored in the breach" so ubiquitous is the practice. This is why "buyout clauses" are part of the liquidated damages clauses in most of these contracts.

We kinda know this already even if we don't know the legalities of it. And we also know that the complaints about this issue typically follows the principle of the gored ox. Houston Nutt is reviled by some because he split for Oxford. These same guys likely view Petrino as a pigskin savior who left an impossible situation in Atlanta to return to the college game. Go figure.

In that same vein we kinda expected the Mitchell report to disclose that which most of us already widely suspected: that steroid use was rampant in baseball throughout the nineties.

So we are used to the fact that coaches in big time sports are always looking for the next gig. The fact that what appears to be a considerable number of baseball players were juicing comes as no big surprise. So why do the events of the last week sadden some of us? I think I know why.

It is because now we see with crystalline clarity that most of the people involved in Big Time Sports are in it only for themselves. As kids, we are told that athletes are role models and that sportsmanship and fair play are more important than the results on the scoreboard. And yet, the Mitchell Report accuses up until recently future Hall of Famer Roger Clemens, among many others, of using steroids to gain a competitive advantage. My friend PM is on the record that, legalities aside, using steroids is no more unsportsmanlike than having lasik surgery on your eyes to correct your vision.

My friend PM and I agree on many things. We do not agree on this. Here is where my friend is flat-assed wrong, to employ the term-of-art we use in Arkansas. Any one of us can get our eyes done. However, the choice to use performance enhancing drugs means choosing to commit a felony in order to gain an advantage over competitors who either do not have the wherewithal or connections to enter the arms race with you or fear the consequences-legal or medical-to do so. That's what makes using performance enhancing drugs manifestly unfair not withstanding the fact that the fools that run baseball, in concert with the fools that represent the player's union, couldn't make it against the rules of the damn sport until George W. Bush, who used to own the Texas Rangers, started threatening to do something to them.

As for the Bobby Petrinos of this world, suffice it say in the words of sportswriter Mike Lupica, they do not hire themselves. While Petrino's exit from the Falcons was graceless even by the low standards of Big Time Sports, he is not especially any more mercenary than many of his headset wearing colleagues. What it does mean is that, with the hiring of a man who has a past relevant work history of loyalty to nobody but himself, the University of Arkansas has made the statement that the Razorbacks are a thing unto themselves with practically no meaningful connection to the higher academic mission of the school. What was once seen in a mirror dimly is now writ large. It's all about the bucks. It is showbiz.

Like I said, we kinda knew all of this stuff before we got pimp-slapped by the events of last week. So, when you talk to your kid about playing sports, it is still right to reinforce all of those old chestnuts about competing hard and playing fair. Only don't point to any of the guys in Big Time Sports as role models for right living.

Because most of them-even some of the people we thought were the good guys- are in it for nobody but themselves and they will do whatever it takes, fair or unfair, to get what they want. What was once seen in a mirror dimly is now writ large.

And that's what made last week a sad week in sports.