Oh, Honestly!

Real Life for Real Moms

On Football, Cheating, and a Six Year Old Sports Fan

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I love football. I love the Patriots. So ever since DeflateGate broke open, my mind has been running through a million questions and possibilities.

Did they do it? Was it intentional? Was the weather a factor? Who’s responsible? Do they do this every game? Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe every QB does it. Maybe it’s not that big a deal.

On Football, Cheating, and a Six Year Old Sports Fan

Football, Cheating, Six Year Old Sports Fan

I haven’t listened to all the talking heads (there are a lot of them!), but from what I have heard, almost a week later, I’m lead to this conclusion:

Brady had to know those footballs were deflated. However, a deflated ball wouldn’t really have any impact on the outcome of a game. I heard one guy on the radio compare it to driving 58 mph instead of 55. Is it breaking the rules? Sure. Is it homicide? No.

Everything in me wants to justify this and I have a pretty compelling list for why we should:

  • If it doesn’t affect the outcome of the game, who cares how inflated/deflated the ball is?
  • Everyone hates the Patriots, so this is just one more way to try to ruin their legacy.
  • 58 in a 55? Really? I do that every day.
  • It’s not like they were taking steroids like all the cheater-pants baseball players.

Yes, I can easily justify it because it’s not that big a deal.

But then.

My six year old is the biggest sports fan I know. He’ll watch any team, any sport and be 100% invested in that game. But most of all, he loves his New England teams.

So we discuss DeflateGate, talk about cheating, go over the consequences, and his major question is, “But they’ll still be in the Superbowl, right?”

Yes, but it’s sullied now. Any major win will always have an asterisk. *They’re cheaters.

“Don’t you see, buddy? Cheating, no matter how big or small, is wrong. It ruins the win.”

I am steeped in hypocrisy. Driving 58 mph as we talk. I am a rule breaker, a cheater. We all are.

How do I teach my children black and white in a world that increasingly thrives in shades of gray?

Do I think a deflated ball is as bad as taking performance enhancing drugs? No. But wrong is wrong and I will teach my children that regardless of how gray we think it is, if we step over that line of black and white, there are consequences.

I’m not naive enough to think my kids will never cross that line, but I certainly hope that when they come to the big moments in their lives, they will choose to move ahead honorably, regardless of how much they have to gain or lose.

And I hope they’ll remember that there might be a six year old watching to see what they’ll do.

 

About Lauren

If you enjoy picture-perfect home decor, perfectly prepared recipes, and perfectly behaved children, you've come to the wrong place. Meet Lauren. She isn't perfect, but she's perfectly real.

Comments

  1. Kristen says

    I’m so torn too – I don’t think it’s as a big of a deal the media is making it – but cheating IS cheating. And the fact that they already had one scandal in 2007 isn’t helping them, and the denials. Stop the denials people! At any rate it makes for a great lesson for our kids AND good fodder for headlines!

    • Lauren says

      I agree, it’s blown up way more than it deserves to be. And with Belichick’s latest press conference, I wonder if it’s possible that they didn’t do anything knowingly wrong. I certainly hope so. I guess the fact still remains that SpyGate has made everyone doubt their integrity. Trust is a terrible thing to lose because it is so hard to gain back.

  2. Anne Marie says

    I haven’t really paid attention to this whole thing because we don’t watch sports much in our house, but cheating is cheating. I think that is the main lesion to take away from this.

    But we can keep all of the entertaining headlines…those make the middle-schooler in me giggle!

    • Lauren says

      After the latest press conference, I don’t know what to think. It seems hard to believe that he wouldn’t notice, but I’m no quarterback. If I’d been out there in that cold, my hands would have been too numb to tell the difference in anything, lol.

    • Lauren says

      I don’t get it either. So many people in so many areas of life willing to throw their integrity away for things that are totally not worth it.

  5. Echo says

    I agree with you. It is so hard to teach kids lessons about certain things when society has many different excuses for so many different things. I think you said it right though. Cheating is cheating and it changes things forever.

    • Lauren says

      Someone said we should thank the NFL for all the teaching moments they’ve given us, lol. It’s pretty sad when I have to explain to my six year old about domestic violence.

  6. Tricia says

    I think they are talking it up so much because it’s great publicity for the Super Bowl. I think it’s ridiculous. I’m sure they feel like it’s not a big deal and everyone does it, but how you could feel so dishonest. It’s definitely a blemish on their careers. I mean I don’t really like them or Belichick because I’ll always think of them as cheaters.

  7. Becka says

    Don’t know anything about this or any football thing but I agree the cheating is cheating. We find ourselves trying to justify because it’s human nature but wrong is still wrong.

  8. Judy says

    My problem is that almost everyone so far has found them guilty, or just about. How about we wait and see what all the info is and what the NFL decision is.

    • Lauren says

      True. It seems that more and more info is coming out that puts the whole thing into question. I’ll happily say I was wrong when the time comes!

  10. Herchel A Scruggs says

    Cheating is cheating. I have to admit that the whole deflated balls thing got me to pay more attention to football than I normally do, though!

    What I don’t get is how they thought nobody would notice?