Too Much Ado About Nothing

On the eve of the biggest sporting event of the country, another major figure has fallen under fire for a comprising photo that appeared in a British tabloid and was confirmed to be accurate. US swimmer Michael Phelps, who shattered every record there was at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was caught smoking marijuana at a party and now is the center of a wide variety of controversy. This is the kind of controversy that is easy to approach objectively for me, as I do not have strong feelings towards drugs and boycotted the last summer games for political reasons. The heart of the debate is the ever changing ideals of our world, and a battle between new and old ideology.

The overwhelming response from people my age seems to be confusion as to why this is even a big deal. Why the IOC and Phelps himself have both been strongly anti-doping, the use of a clearly non-performance enhancing (although stilled banned) drug simply does not spark the same outrage that you see in the older generations following this story. The simple fact of that matter, that certain people seem to have trouble coming to terms with, is that people in their early twenties are going to do break taboos such as drug use. It has become more and more accepted over the years and has reached the point of almost being a social norm now for the younger generations. While one can obviously debate that such a photo “sets a bad example” marijuana use in teens and people in their early twenties is so prevalent that for many the shock value simply is not there.

From a doping stand point, the talk of stripping medals and the such comes off to be as being rather ridiculous. While I understand the need for strong doping laws in all professional sport, targeting something as harmless with no performance enhancing qualities comes across as needlessly creating more controversy. There is no explanation in my mind for equating recreational drug use at a party to steroid use to gain a competitive edge in a sporting event. They sit at different ends of the spectrum, and besides being morally wrong (a debate I’ve weighed in on already) there truly is no correlation between the two.

The final and most difficult debate is one that we see constantly in both sports and entertainment. It is the question of the responsibility of a popular public figure to be a role model to the youth. This is a point I never have approved of, an athlete’s job is to compete and reach the goals that are expected of him. To be the face of youth culture is simply asking too much from someone who is not realistically in a position to take on such a role. Phelps was put under enough pressure during the games to achieve all of the awards and records he did, to then expect him to live like a monk simply strikes me as seeming superfluous. Certainly, good behavior would help the image of such a public figure; however one night of harmless partying does not strike me as being the sort of action worthy of tarnishing an entire reputation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/sports/othersports/02phelps.html?_r=1&ref=sports

I don't like to do sports stories, but the insane media attention this is already getting is causing me to make an exception.