Okay, here's the Phelps discussion thread

Triathlon Forum
1

i know we’ve batted this around a bit already here and in the lavender room (that secret place where you go, online, if your family isn’t looking). but i was talking to a USOC official today, establishing my bona fides, and he said, “no need to explain. i know who you are, i was reading your OpEd this morning, and i followed the link at the end of the story to… nowhere.”

well, he’s sort of right. this forum is the place that these discussions take place, and the link i put at the end of the article just went to the main forum table. i am guessing, tho, that i need to be more explicit, because i just googled michael phelps along with jim scherr, the USOC’s executive director, and that opinion piece here on slowtwitch came up first. accordingly, i’m changing the link at the end of that opinion piece of phelps to this thread specifically (instead of just the main forum table).

one great thing about this forum: you can think fondly of us here for hosting the site, yet be demonstrably, and very apparently, in abject disagreement with me (i love that about you). i think a representative first sentence on this forum might be: “thanks for hosting slowtwtich, dan, but,* you ignorant slut…!*”

i am therefore gratified to note that in this one narrow case, of michael phelps’ suspension, it appears 75 percent of you think as i do (based on the poll we’re taking right now on the right hand side of the page you’re reading). we may have come to our conclusions for different reasons, but the end result is the same: that michael phelps should not be serving a suspension.

nevertheless, my concern is not for phelps, who will be fine. it’s for the behavioral marker the USOC is establishing, that the rules of competition are not the beginning and the end of it; that the USOC has now widened its circumference of sanctionable behavior to include any and all behavior it deems unacceptable.

there is a second point. what i did not write in my OpEd, but what i wonder about, is this: i suspect the religious intolerance exhibited at times over the past decade at the Air Force Academy has as an aggravating cause its location proximate to the (at least) 80 evangelical organizations that call colorado springs headquarters. i therefore wonder whether this apparent need for michael phelps to not only race fairly, but act morally, at all times, has as its impetus the same prime movers that (i suspect) caused the air force academy across town to inject a belief system into what ought to be free of such influences. in other words, if any large organization headquartered in the springs going to be influenced by the evangelicals, as it might be influenced by mormons were it on salt lake city. would the USOC be banning phelps from competition for pic of him toking if it had been headquartered for the past quarter century in, say, portland, oregon? or san francisco?

mind, this is just a guess, and i’m casting about looking for reasons why the USOC seems now to want to exert influence into how we comport ourselves in areas wholly unconnected to the sporting life. i also wonder if this is about morality or legality (phelps is not even guilty of a misdemeanor, he is guilty of behavior which, if prosecuteted, resulting in a conviction, would only then be a misdemeanor). if it’s just because it’s pot, well, then it’s about a moral standard, and then we have to start the discussion of what moral standard. whose moral standard. and that’s where i have the problem.

finally, i’m left to wonder where this stops. is the USOC willing to say this begins and ends with those who have been on an olympic team and are still actively competing professional athletes? or those also who aspire to be an olympian? who aspire to be world class? who hold pro cards? who compete at national or world age group or masters championships? or who are simply annual members of federations?

2

+1 on your op-ed.

Make sure the playing field is level. Don’t worry yourself with how the living field is played.

-Jot

3

Thanks for hosting Slowtwitch, Dan. But, I totally agree with you.

You may be ignorant, and you may be a slut, but I don’t know anything about that.

todd

4

Two words:

Ross Rebagliati.

It comes down to a very simple fact - pot is not a performance-enhancing drug.

5

Dan,
Not sure why you’re taking aim at the USOC, they didn’t suspend Phelps…

Updated Statement from USA Swimming Regarding Michael Phelps (2/5/2009)
USA Swimming has reprimanded Michael Phelps under its Code of Conduct by withdrawing financial support and the eligibility to compete for a period of three months effective today, Feb. 5, 2009.

This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero.

Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust.

6

But by withdrawing eligibility didn’t they effectively ban him? You’re not banned you’re just not eligible to compete. Seems the same to me.

7

You’re right. But Dan is ranting about the USOC when they didn’t revoke his eligibility/suspend him…USA Swimming did.

8

“Not sure why you’re taking aim at the USOC, they didn’t suspend Phelps…”

the reason they didn’t suspend phelps is that they’re not in the suspending business, except that they can remove its charter, or imprimatur (i don’t know the term of art) from a national federation. in other words, USA Swimming can suspend phelps, the USOC can suspend (or revoke, or withdraw from) USA Swimming as the NGB representing swimming as the daughter federation of the USOC.

so, yes, you’re right, swimming suspended phelps. but you saw very little of chuck weilgus (swimming’s ED), and a lot of jim scherr. it was scherr (USOC exec dir) in front of the press. it was quite clear that scherr was running point on this. he was framing this. he was explaining and parsing and interpreting. the USOC was running this phelps thing, and i think any perusal of the mainstream news reports on phelps’ suspension would prove this out.

9

Now what if USA Swimming had its headquarters in Boulder? Do you think they would not only not suspend him, but also award him Lifetime Achievement Award right away?

10

So, when a NFL player, say a Raider, gets caught doing something illegal, who becomes the point guy? A majority of the time it’s Roger Goodell not Al Davis. Now say it’s the NFL’s most marquee player (nowadays, I don’t know who that might be but you get the idea), who would you expect to come out and say something? You better believe it’s going to be Goodell.

Look, I don’t think they should’ve suspended Phelps but he is the face of the Olympics in the US (and possibly the world). What would you expect the USOC and USA Swimming to do? They have millions and millions of dollars at stake here. NBC rode Phelps to its highest Olympic ratings in years, which equates to hundreds of millions of dollars for the entire Olympic family. I will concede that this suspension is nothing but grandstanding by USA Swimming/USOC, but their financial situation with sponsors doesn’t allow them to just sweep it under the rug.

11

What kind of backlash would you expect against USA Swimming/USOC if they did NOT suspend Phelps?

Bringing up his financial sponsors is a key point here - they have ‘more to lose’ directly by their athlete being caught doing something ‘unsavory’. And yet only one of Phelps’ sponsors (Kellogg’s, a company with very direct and strong links to wacky christian fundamentalists) chose to revoke sponsorship. The others collectively gave it the ol’ shoulder shrug and continued on status quo.

So I’m just not getting exactly what the USOC brass was afraid of. Granted, I’m not intimately familiar with how their ‘business model’ works, but I’d be surprised if there were any real threat to them out of Phelps getting caught puffing a bong.

12

“What would you expect the USOC and USA Swimming to do? They have millions and millions of dollars at stake here.”

you have to remember, i’m a process guy. i’m as consistent as the tides about this. process is my religion. you’re arguing consequences. when you do, processes become expendable. when you argue consequences, you believe in nothing. you stand for nothing. the minute consequences become the determiner, the athlete (or the citizen) knows he’s got nothing he can rely upon. you don’t live under a set of laws anymore, but of whims.

13

I wish I could talk more about the Kellogg’s deal and how I think it all went down but I can’t.

I guess I didn’t make my point clear in my earlier post. I’m not exactly defending what the USOC/USA Swimming are doing because the Phelps suspension is basically worthless. However, the USOC/USA Swimming needs to be able to tell their sponsors and potential sponsors that they are doing everything they can to protect the Olympic brand/image, and, thus protecting their sponsors.

14

Isn’t basketball an Olympic sport with a lot of NBA players participating? Should be interesting to see what would happen if a picture of an NBA player showed up smoking pot…

15

The USOC probably wouldn’t say anything knowing the public sees basketball players as NBA players not Olympians.

16

“What would you expect the USOC and USA Swimming to do? They have millions and millions of dollars at stake here.”

you have to remember, i’m a process guy. i’m as consistent as the tides about this. process is my religion. you’re arguing consequences. when you do, processes become expendable. when you argue consequences, you believe in nothing. you stand for nothing. the minute consequences become the determiner, the athlete (or the citizen) knows he’s got nothing he can rely upon. you don’t live under a set of laws anymore, but of whims.

Hmm, but aren’t the consequences the metric by which you judge (at least partially) the merits of a particular process? After all, you establish a process to produce a set of results. Without those results, the process itself loses meaning. Looked at another way, another name for arguing for process in a vacuum is “Nuremburg Defense”. :slight_smile:

Oops, did I just kill the thread? :wink:

EDIT: To say that, in spite of my satiric (and, admittedly, tactless) response, I do agree that the subversion of process in this case (esp. if motivated by selfish reasons) is repugnant. But my point is still valid: You do have to assess the quality of the consequences of a particular process, at least in part, to assess the merit of the process itself. And perhaps you’re also partly reacting to what might appear to be a widening of the USOC’s circle of “intended consequences” to include behavioral stipulations for Olympic athletes.

cramer

17

I guess I understand - they have to nip this stuff in the bud, right? This time it was just pot - imagine what might happen if an Olympic athlete actually got busted using some other drug, maybe one that enhanced their performance?

Oh wait…

18

Let’s not bring up the joke that is having NBA players in the Olympics. It all starts with them not being in the WADA drug-testing pool like every other player in the World, which provides an unfair advantage to the US.

19

It just seems like a double standard since NBA players don’t have to submit to WADA and the pot smoking issue when all of them are Olympians. I agree that NBA players shouldn’t be allowed in the Olympics and that it should go back to amateurs, even with ice hockey and baseball.

20

“Hmm, but aren’t the consequences the metric by which you judge (at least partially) the merits of a particular process?”

to a degree, yes. but then you change the process, you don’t abandon the concept of process. you are governed by laws, not be expediency. but if the laws aren’t working, you don’t abandon the rule of law. you amend the law.

i think the USOC behaved expediently, that is, it sacrificed one of its star athletes in order for it to achieve an expedient solution. but i don’t see where it has the moral right to do so, and i very seriously question whether it has the right under its own legal framework to do so, that is, it might say that it does, but i question whether phelps would’ve had to live under this suspension had he challenged it. but the suspension was light enough that it was better for phelps to go along with it than to fight it. the suspension was perfectly calibrated in that sense.

keep your eye on the ball. phelps was guilty of… what? let me ask you this. let’s say michael phelps was hauled away for blocking the entrance of an abortion clinic, even after a judge slapped him with an order to stay 500 feet away from it. would he have been suspended from competition?