Sports

If Only The Profession Was This Strict AFTER Admitting A Lawyer To The Bar…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
No, surprisingly in light of last week's revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I'm as stunned as you are!

No, surprisingly in light of last week’s revelations from Cambridge, the applicant who cheated on her bar exam did NOT go to Harvard. I’m as stunned as you are!

One of the legal profession’s ethics anomalies is that its character standards for entering legal practice are far more unforgiving than the standards for keeping one’s license to practice after being admitted. For while John Edwards continues to be a North Carolina lawyer in “good standing,” an Ohio bar applicant was held to lack the requisite good character to be a trustworthy lawyer (Ohio Supreme Court opinion here) because of the following set of facts.

When Jasmine Shawn Parker of Covington, Kentucky was taking the Ohio bar exam, a test monitor reported that she had continued to write for up to 30 seconds after “time” was called on a set of two exam questions, and then again for 45 to 60 seconds on two sets of two exam questions. The Board of Bar Examiners investigated, and asked Parker’s tablemates about their observations or her actions, if any, after time had been called. They reported that Parker had continued writing for maybe a second or two past the declared deadline on Day 1 of the exam, and on the second day, had continued to write past the stopping point “long enough to get at least two lines of writing on paper.” As a penalty after these findings, the Ohio Board of Bar Examiners gave Parker no credit on the exam question with the highest point value. Never mind: Parker’s score was high enough to pass the bar exam anyway. Her alleged cheating, however, led the Board of Commissioners on Character and Fitness to recommend her license be denied, with the opportunity to reapply.  Continue reading →

Cost of Rick Curl’s ‘Stay-Out-Of-Jail-And Keep-Molesting-Girls’ Card: $6,250 a Year

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
I hope it was worth the cash, Kelley.

I hope it was worth the cash, Kelley.

All in all, you would have to say that renowned Maryland swimming coach Rick Curl made a pretty sweet deal for himself. True, he’s headed to jail now, after pleading guilty to charges of child sexual abuse as a result of the testimony of Kelley Currin. Currin, now 41, was a former swimmer coached by Curl, and was molested and ultimately raped by him over six years beginning when she was only 13. But Curl paid Kelley’s parents, Gerald and Pamela Davies, $150,000 to keep his secret from police, the community, and the swim team (the Davies had read about his abuse in their daughter’s journal and confronted him) in 1989.  Kelley, who was 19 when her family got paid off, waited until last year to finally alert authorities, so Curl kept his freedom, reputation, and most important of all, his opportunity to be trusted with the yummy, young, nubile daughters of other, unsuspecting parents, for a bargain yearly rate of only $6,250.

Not bad! Not bad at all. Continue reading →

Soccer, Sports, Corruption, and Cultural Rot

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Bitter rot After a moment’s reflection, I realized that it was inevitable that international soccer would be rocked by a match-fixing scandal. If I should have seen it coming, and I care as much about soccer as George S. Kaufman cared about Eddie Fisher’s social life*, then the officials of the sport should have seen it coming too.

From the New York Times:

“…A European police intelligence agency said Monday that its 19-month investigation, code-named Operation Veto, revealed widespread occurrences of match-fixing in recent years, with 680 games globally deemed suspicious. The extent was staggering: some 150 international matches, mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America; roughly 380 games in Europe, covering World Cup and European championship qualifiers as well as two Champions League games; and games that run the gamut from lower-division semiprofessional matches to contests in top domestic leagues.”

Thus soccer, the most played, most followed, most passionately cheered of all major team sports has been rigged. It doesn’t matter that all the games weren’t rigged; what matters is that now nobody can be sure that a game isn’t rigged. How can a fan care, deeply care, about the outcome of an athletic contest when there is always a lurking, justified suspicion that victory is undeserved and that defeat is unfair? In the span of just a few weeks, we have heard the golden boy of American and international cycling admit that he was at the center of a cheating conspiracy, and that he used lies, influence and financial power to make his sport a contest of which competitor could break the rules most effectively. New revelations from Miami, meanwhile, indicate that Major League Baseball’s so-called steroid era, which supposedly had been vanquished forever, may never have gone away at all: several current stars, like the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and 2011 National League MVP Ryan Braun, have been linked to treatments at a clinic known for human growth hormone therapy. Big sports mean big money, and where there is big money, there will always be clever, dishonest people willing to crush laws, ethics, sportsmanship and public trust in order to get more of it. Continue reading →

Sending in the Kids To Swim With “Jaws”: Roger Goodell, Mayor of Amity

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Jaws-boy

One of the most disturbing moments in “Jaws,” at least for me, is the scene where the mayor of Amity island, whom we know is  in possession of strong evidence that a Great White shark is cruising the waters of his town’s beaches looking for snacks, persuades an elderly couple to take their grandchildren into the surf to show everyone else on the beach that the water is safe. The scene leapt immediately to mind yesterday morning, when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, in a Super Bowl Sunday interview on “Face the Nation,” emphatically told CBS’s Bob Shieffer that unlike President Obama, he would unhesitatingly allow his son to play football. I’m sure he would, too. After all, Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) sent his own kids into the Amity surf.

Like his role model, Mayor Vaughn, Goodell has a terrible problem, as well as a conflict of interest. He is paid to do what is in the best interests of the National Football League, and admitting that the game the league plays and the way it play it kills or mains a significant number of its players would be seen by his employers as a breach of duty. So despite mounting evidence that every single NFL player is putting his brain, health, and life at grave risk by allowing the relentless head trauma that is an unavoidable part of the game, Goodell feels he must claim otherwise, which, assuming he is basically a good man (I was never sure about Larry Vaughn), means he must convince himself that what he says is true. This led Goodell to make a series of statements yesterday that will haunt him some day as much as Mayor Vaughn’s infamous interview quote on the day the little Kintner boy (above) became chum: “I’m pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it’s a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means friendship.” Continue reading →

Be Very Afraid: Why Fake Statistics Become “True”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
"Those nachos were COLD!!!"

“Those nachos were COLD!!!”

Last week, I wrote about how fake statistics become “true,” after Gabriella Giffords’ husband Mark Kelly asserted as fact that “85% of all children killed by gunfire worldwide die in the U.S.” while ABC’s Diane Sawyer tut-tutted approvingly. Credible advocate, shocking statistic, passive, lazy and biased journalist, politically correct objective—all the elements were in place. We will hear this lie for decades now, probably in a future Presidential debate.

Now the perceptive and watchful James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has found a smoky gun that tells us much about why we get so many bad statistics, and why the media supports them. A U.S. World and News Report article combined the recent passage of  the Violence Against Women Act with the upcoming Super Bowl, to get this:

“Urban myths rarely have a useful purpose other than to confound, outrage, and frighten people into passing them along. But there’s a silver lining to this one—the idea that Super Bowl Sunday is linked to the highest incidences of domestic abuse in the country. While experts in the field dismiss that theory, they value the increased attention paid to domestic violence on the occasion.

“‘The Super Bowl does not cause domestic violence, and it doesn’t increase domestic violence, but it does increase the public’s awareness of the issue, which will help victims learn about help and resources,” says Cindy Southworth, vice president of development and innovation at the National Network to End Domestic Violence.'”

Oh. Well then the lie is all right then! Continue reading →

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Today is Jackie Robinson’s birthday. He would be 94, but he lived only slightly more than half that long. He was one of our greatest ethics heroes, and I’d like to honor Mr. Robinson by reblogging a post from April 16 of last year.

Jack Marshall's avatarEthics Alarms

Yesterday, the media, history buffs and Kate Winslet fans were obsessed with remembering the Titanic, sometimes even with proper reverence to the 1500 men, women and children who lost their lives in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. A strong argument could be made, however, that the most significant event that occurred on April 15 took place in 1947, in Brooklyn, New York. For that was the day that Jackie Robinson ran out to his position at first base as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and became the first African- American to play baseball in the Major Leagues since the earliest years of the game.

With that act, and his epic heroism for the rest of the season, Robinson changed baseball, sports, American society and history. It was a cultural watershed in a nation that had been virtually apartheid since the end of the Civil War, a catalytic…

View original post 781 more words

Are Gentlemen Sexist?

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments
"Oh, Tommy---you're such a pig!"

“Oh, Tommy—you’re such a pig!”

On the flip side of the hit post about Emily Heist Moss’s open letter to her harassers, we have the B-side (I know this metaphor marks me as a fogy ): my objections to a New York Times essay by Lynn Messna, who declares that she doesn’t want her son to be gentleman, because gentlemen are sexist.

She writes:

“Start to complain about your preschooler adopting gentlemanly behavior and you quickly discover how out of step you are with the rest of the world. Almost everyone I mention it to thinks it’s lovely and sweet. What’s the harm in teaching little boys to respect little girls?..But I don’t think it’s an overreaction to resent the fact that your son is being given an extra set of rules to follow simply because he’s a boy. His behavior, already constrained by a series of societal norms, now has additional restrictions. Worse than that, he’s actively being taught to treat girls differently,  something I thought we all agreed to stop doing, like, three decades ago. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Stan (“The Man”) Musial, 1920-2013

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Stan Musial

Baseball great Stan Musial is a different kind of lifetime ethics hero, which is one reason it is important to so honor him. Unlike everyone who has ever received that designation here,  the iconic St. Louis Cardinal had no famous episode that crystallizes his character for posterity, no inspiring quotes attributed to him, nothing at all as impressive by itself as his athletic feats on the baseball field, which were among the most distinguished of any Major League baseball career. What was remarkable about Stan Musial is that over three decades in the public eye and four more after leaving it, he never did anything wrong.

Musial remained with one team his entire career, out of loyalty to the city and the fans who loved him. He never complained about where he batted in the order, or where he played; though he spent a lifetime being overshadowed in the sports pages by more colorful, edgier personalities like Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Willy Mays, he never whined about it, or made transparent efforts to seek the spotlight. He famously gave out autographs to all who asked with grace and a smile, even when the inflated price of athlete autographs soared. His team mates say that Musial visited children’s hospitals without the press or photographers in tow, because he performed such acts of kindness not for himself, but for the kids. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Lance Armstrong

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“I deserve to be punished. I’m not sure I deserve the “death penalty.”

—- Lance Armstrong in his confessional with Oprah Winfrey.

In a word: Astounding.

Sure, why should you be punished any more than any other cyclist..wait, did you really just say that?"

Sure, why should you be punished any more than any other cyclist..wait, did you really just say that?”

Most of the second segment of Oprah’s interview with Armstrong was an anti-climax to the first, with one shocking exception.

Armstrong noted that all of the former team-mates who testified against him made deals that netted them, at most, six month suspensions from competition. Now that he was coming clean to Oprah, Armstrong implied, he deserved a similar deal. “I’m not saying [ how Armstrong is being treated] is unfair…but it’s …different,” he said. Then he uttered the statement about the “death penalty”—his lifetime ban from any professional athletic competition, biking or otherwise.

Armstrong “isn’t sure” that cheating to win the most important competition in his sport seven times, corrupting other cyclists, lying—defiantly, pugnaciously, flamboyantly— for almost two decades…bullying anyone who tried to tell the truth about his deceptions…using his money, influence and power to intimidate and silence…accepting millions of dollars in sponsorships based on lies and fraud…embarrassing sponsors and supporters by linking them to a conspiracy of lies and drug peddling…and arguably worst of all, building a charitable foundation on those lies, while inducing children and cancer survivors to embrace him as a hero…deserves a lifetime forfeiture of trust, not just as an athletic competitor, but as a business partner, associate, and friend?

Despite all his assurances to Oprah that he is a changed man, and that he is truly sorry, and that he understands the enormity of his betrayals, Lance Armstrong hasn’t learned a thing.

Lance Armstrong and Oprah: First Impressions

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey

I just finished watching the first installment of the Lance Armstrong-Oprah interview–almost twice, in fact. I’ll be watching tomorrow’s installment too (I am scheduled to talk about Lance on NPR’s “Tell Me More” on Monday, to be broadcast Sunday) and maybe it will alter some of my initial impressions.

But I doubt it.

Impressions:

1. Armstrong is not apologetic in the least, in any way, despite the occasional nod to apology-like langauge. He is not somewhat like, but exactly like, a mob hit man testifying before a Senate committee on organized crime. He is doing what he has to do, and if there is any genuine regret or contrition, I couldn’t discern it. Frankly, I am stunned at how unapologetic he is.

2. Most damning moment: Right off the bat, Oprah asks Lance “Why now?” It’s a superfluous question; everyone knows the answer is “Because I’m trapped; because the lies don’t work any more; because this is my best chance of persuading some people, the gullible ones, but we know how many of them there are, to give me a second chance.” I didn’t expect Armstrong to be that candid, of course, but I did expect him to have an answer, probably a contrite, self-serving one, prepared. He didn’t. “That’s a great question,” he said, stalling. Incredibly, he said he didn’t really have a good answer. “I know it’s too late,” he offered. Yes, I’d say thirteen years, marked by lying, doping, posturing and attacking is too late. That’s the best Armstrong could muster. Heck, if he just kept up with current movies, he would have had some great answers, like Denzel Washington, in the climax of “Flight,” confessing a career of flying commercial airlines drunk by saying, (I’m paraphrasing) “I just couldn’t stand telling one more lie.” Or that old stand-by, “It was the right thing to do.”

The sign of a completely unethical person is that they can’t even imagine what thinking ethically is like. On the evidence of this interview, that’s Lance Armstrong.

3. Most telling quote: while explaining that his 2009-2010 comeback is what opened the floodgates of attention and investigation that led to the explosion of his long campaign of deception and lies, Armstrong said, “Without the comeback, I wouldn’t be here now.” Translation: “Without the comeback, I would have gotten away with it, and I sure as Hell wouldn’t be sitting here spilling the beans to you.” He then terms his comeback a “mistake.” Armstrong is sorry he let himself be caught, and he is sorry for the consequences of his lies being discovered.

Continue reading →