Today's blog was written by Joseph Fisher. Joe is a senior Chemistry and Business double major at Notre Dame and a student in the Social Foundations of Coaching course taught by Play Like a Champion Founder and Director Professor Clark Power and Program Director Kristin Sheehan. In his spare time, Joe is doing a coaching practicum as a volunteer assistant boy's tennis coach at a local high school. The opinions expressed in the blog are Mr. Fisher's, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Play Like a Champion Today.
When do you draw the line between
success in sports and doing the right thing?
It really depends on whom you ask the question to—if you were to ask that
question to the football team at the University of Notre Dame, they would say
that their line is drawn very early in the sand. The Fighting Irish, just earlier this season,
suspended 5 players from practice and games on the suspicion of academic dishonesty. These five players represented
several major contributors for the Irish from last season, but the decision
still stood. In this situation, it seems that Notre Dame is placing academics above football.
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| Jameis Winton photo courtesy of ABC News |
When you
look at the Florida State University football team though, the difference could
not be more apparent. The way they have
handled the current Jameis Winston situation has many people questioning FSU’s
motives. Winston is the Heisman-winning quarterback at the school, and this isn't his first "situation." Is FSU more focused on
football than doing the right thing? If
not, why are they still allowing Winston to play amidst allegations of sexual assault and being paid for over 2000 items with his signature? This is also after he was arrested for stealing crab legs from a Publix. Where does it
stop? People look up to Winston (or at
least did, before all of this happened). As last year’s Heisman Memorial
Trophy winner, he was supposed to exemplify the best of college
football, both on and off the field.
Winston clearly has not matured enough to truly exemplify the best of
what college football has to offer, and FSU is hurting from a publicity standpoint
because of his recent antics. The fact
that FSU still has not suspended him shows that they are placing
football over morality in this situation.
The problem is that they are
forgetting what exactly the definition of Champion should be—it is not just
about winning and being the best team, but more about playing with class and
morality. One cannot truly be a champion
unless they are humble enough to acknowledge that they have something truly
special, and should be honored to be a champion. Jameis Winston has clearly not accepted or
understood this fact yet, and he is acting out of selfishness. He is placing himself above his university
and his team, and he doesn’t seem to care.
Every time he gets in trouble and gives a press conference to apologize,
it is the same line: I’ve let down this university and my teammates, coaches,
and the fans of FSU football and I’m sorry.
Only he doesn’t mean it. It is an
empty sentence, read from a script that he did not write, and one that he has
no feeling or conviction for. This is
the exact opposite type of person that kids should be looking up to, yet
Winston doesn’t seem to care. Jameis is
all about Jameis.
