Right is Right No Matter the Plight

They have to suit up and go perform their duties on holidays, sometimes missing time with their families. They have to undergo rigorous training all year long to maintain the physical conditioning required to perform at a level that keeps the checks coming in. They have to endure physical abuse and injury, sometimes weekly or even daily, from relentless and vicious opponents. And all in the name of blessing Americans with the gift of entertainment. What sacrifices these professional athletes make in their jobs! What tribulations they must go through! And now, in a case like "Bountygate", players like Jonathan Vilma are maliciously persecuted and unjustly penalized by a tyrannical commissioner, whose thirst for power and division among teams cannot be satiated!

Anyone feeling sympathy right now….? For the record, neither am I.

Actually, in the words of the old Linkin Park song, I’m “one step closer to the edge, and I’m about to break.” Break free, that is, from what’s becoming a sillier and sillier loyalty in my fanhood to professional sports. Stories in the headlines, and the ensuing debate, controversy, and cacophony of whining done by players, media members, owners, and fans are just hammering home the erroneous message that we should pity the circumstances of these beloved star athletes, who are the cogs powering the juggernaut entertainment worlds of sports, the American pastimes, as they say.

This message, whether intentional or subliminal, has got to be contradicted. Why? Not because I feel the need to simply add to the noise, nor because I even care whether American sports fans really understand the proper way to view the myriad of titanically overpaid athletes and entertainers in our country. We have to get our thinking right about these cases, because of the underlying applications to our own lives. The players and other people involved in the NFL, whether in stories of supposed persecution or injustice like those penalized in "Bountygate," or others, are terribly missing the mark in understanding their moral obligations and responsibilities. But worse yet, they and the whole media mess are conveying to the rest of the nation that "situational ethics" is still alive and well as a great personal modus operandi. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the reference, "Bountygate" is the satirical label for the story in recent sports headlines, that at certain points in the last 2-3 seasons in the NFL, the New Orleans Saints football team allegedly used a program of "bounties" (i.e. prize money for injuring opponents in high stakes games) to motivate their defensive players. Head coach Sean Payton was immediately suspended for the 2012-13 season when the news broke, and the defensive coordinator who was supposedly the ringleader of it all, Gregg Williams, was indefinitely suspended - he may never see the light of day in the NFL again. Others have had fines or suspensions handed down, and the debate that's arisen from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's disciplinary actions is getting plenty of airtime on radio talk shows, ESPN, and the like. Jonathan Vilma, a Saints linebacker, has thus far been dealt the heaviest blow in it all, being suspended for the entire upcoming season without pay, as his head coach was. Vilma claims innocence of his charges, saying he refused to take part in a bounty program that coaches were instituting on the team. Whether his plea of innocence is true or not remains to be determined.

What spurred today's thoughts, though, was reading an article by long-time sports writer Rick Reilly, who basically lambasts Commissioner Goodell for his actions in handing out any player suspensions at all. His line of argument is what really provoked my thoughts: that the NFL is entirely comparable to the military, in that a coach's orders to do this or that (even if the command could be interpreted as morally wrong) is the same as troops' duty to obey their drill sergeant or captain in battle; and that it's wrong to punish these players who may or may not have participated in the bounty program, because we should all accept that the players follow a code of absolute obedience to their coaches. 

Does anyone else see anything terribly disturbing in this line of thinking? 

Firstly, let's take a time out and clear one thing up. The NFL is most undeniably not like the military. In a few of the surface details that Reilly's column suggested (that they wear uniforms, they have rigorous training, and there's some sort of battle that takes place where brotherhood is needed), there is some small comparison. But in my opinion - one that aims to give much more reverence to those laying down their very lives for the preservation of our freedom - it's not anywhere close in the ways that count. In military training, and in the field of battle itself, a soldier listens to his commander because failure to do so disrupts the cohesiveness of the unit, and it can result in the death of that solider, and his mates. This is hardly what's on the line when a coach says, "Jump, Vilma!" In this case Jonathan Vilma, or any other Saints player, could respectfully decline to participate because his integrity is on the line and the thing commanded of him is in conflict with what is morally acceptable. In this case, failure to obey may mean a demotion or blacklisting in the league. But, as Orrin Woodward says, "What is your integrity worth to you?" 

Reilly wants us to all fall to our knees and weep over the prospect of a player's disobedience to a morally wayward coach resulting in that player being effectively banished to the Canadian Football League, and watching his career take a hit.  But first of all, the millions of Americans who, like I, make barely enough to pay for rent and groceries each month, should not feel sorry for someone whose career consists of a glorified, flashier level of playground activities we all did at recess in school. Considering the millions of dollars that Vilma has made up til now, and will likely make again one day when the dust settles, his life is nowhere near ruined. So he's not going to undergo any real trauma or difficulty, other than what self-pity brings on. Besides that, for a pro football player to sell out his character just to avoid becoming unpopular with colleagues, is to open the door for a habit of doing so in anything else in life. 

Our subconscious mind, which outweighs our conscious mind by 4 billion neurons to a couple thousand (See: "The Ant and the Elephant" by Bill Peet) will notice every occasion that you ignore the right choice for the wrong one - it doesn't give two hoots about your reason why - and will slightly program you to a comfort with doing it again later, until eventually a person is flying down that slippery slope at breakneck pace. It's been said that, if we can't be honest with ourselves, we'll never be honest with others. Rick Reilly is making the argument that, in certain cases such as this, where it's just always been that NFL players abide by the wishes of their coaches, it's "situationally acceptable" for a man to inflict purposeful injury on another. Are we really willing to glorify a professional sport to that extent? Is it so important that we laud and magnify the great NFL and its awe-inspiring players, who are in such extreme peer and authority pressure to join in jumping off the cliff like the rest? What would Reilly say if a story emerged about a different vocational setting with the same plotline? Let's say Bill has Dave violently hip-check Harold into the copy machine in the office, because Bill is worried Harold is about to take his promotion and Dave, his subordinate, has always been his office lackey, the one who keeps the corporate ladder's rungs safe for Bill. Suddenly it doesn't sound so "reasonable," does it? If you call a "wrong" a "right" in one case, how can we possibly know where a "wrong" needs to just be a "wrong"? 

I'm not saying that Rick Reilly is a horrible person. But I am saying that he is, sadly, exhibiting a symptom of what's become an epidemic in American society (and yes, around the world as well) - moral relativism. The post-modern world view, which has as a core belief the idea that there are no moral absolutes, has been creeping into our nation's homes, streets, institutions, and governments for many years already. But it seems to be more prevalent than ever, not only in the fact that Rick Reilly would pine for justice for these players on his line of justification, but, worse, in the fact that so few would balk at his saying so.

If we are to continue on down this slippery slope of moral relativism, saying "Hey man, what's right for you is cool, but I have a different take on that," or "Well, that used to be the way a football player should act, but times have changed," we will watch our country lose everything it has stood for since the days of the founders. How is it that no one anymore challenges this idea, and says "Now wait a minute! If it's wrong to purposely injure someone out in your backyard at a friendly barbecue pickup football game, why is it any different in some professional football league?" It should be clear that the right thing to do is always right, and that, if anything, when we hear in the news that so-and-so went against what was right because it was going to be unusually hard to stand firm, we should be collectively groaning over that tally in the loss column of the scoreboard of life in our nation. 

What's right is right no matter what. To do the right thing in all situations is not only simply the right thing to do and is pleasing to God, who demands perfection of people (even though he is forgiving and merciful when we fail), but it's also another layer of mortar in the foundation that we build all our lives, to make sure the houses we set upon them (such as our families and marriages, our roles in our workplaces, our friendships, our public offices, and so on) can stand and not fall. 

If Jonathan Vilma is telling the truth in his denial of taking part in "Bountygate," let's pray that, whether or not he wins any appeal in NFL courts and is cleared to play and have his status restored, he can ultimately stand tall and proud, and have a sense of conviction and vindication in knowing that the character he chose not to sacrifice was worth far more than a year's salary. May we all choose what's right always, because our character is priceless, and because the example it sets to the world around us is part of a legacy worth leaving.

God bless.