Sports Ethics
Every theory that we learn in all the classes have their practicality in real life. Likewise in ethics we learn its respective theories and in our daily lives everything is explained ethically. In our Friday tutorial we had several sectors where ethical issues can be best described for instance ethics in sports, media, education and many other sectors. During this tutorial I had grasped a lot and it helped me see things that were initially there but I rarely paid attention to. I understood that sometimes we get into ethical dilemmas even without knowing about them. I have always had something for activity classes where the students are active and not passive. Being in this class with all this learning activities fascinates me. On this tutorial we had an activity where we picked out papers with animal names written on them and grouped with students who possessed the same animal. After that we chose an ethical topic to discuss with in our group then later present it to the rest of the class. My group mate and I, the Goat team, chose sports as an ethical issue.
Sports ethical issues are tremendously growing and coaches should be aware of these ethical issues. Some of these ethical issues are cheating, bullying, abuse of power, disrespect to officials, eating disorders, use of illegal enhancement drugs to boost their physical capacity and many more ethical issues. My group mate and I discussed the good and the bad ethical issues of sports.
First and foremost, cheating is one of the major ethical issue that is common in all sports whether its football, badminton, volleyball, chess or video games. Cheating in football may occur when some teams bribe the referee so that the results can be in their favour. I can’t pin point all the ways that sportsmen cheat in sports but we know that people have their own way of cheating in a sophisticated way.
Second major thing is the use of illegal enhancement drugs to boost their work rate. When sportsmen use drugs to boost their energy not only do they break the rules but they are endangering their lives. Illegal enhancement drugs help the users become tireless and some examples of the users can be marathon runners, footballers and cyclists. A recent example is the fall from grace to shame for popular cyclist Lance Armstrong after it was confirmed he’s been using performance enhancement drugs, which led to the stripping of all his titles and honours.
Coaches should be conscious that they are in a position of power in regard to the participants they coach. It is essential that coaches operate professionally and with integrity in their relationships with people who are participating in or associated with their sport. They should at all times encourage their sportsmen to abide by the rules of their respective games in order to win fairly.
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