Parenting 101: Find a lesson in the Patriots' spying scandal

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 14, 2008 | by MYLO BRYANT

The e-mail came during the NFL playoffs.

Only now is there a halfway decent response to the inquiry.

The words in the e-mail were to the point. The queswere simple enough, but the answer is anything but simple to explain.

"I need your professional help to explain the New England Patriots to my grandson. He is 9 years old and asked me how a team that did the ultimate sin by cheating in professional football, be found guilty and fined for this degrading act of professionalism, be treated as royalty by the majority of all sport journalists. 1. Coach of the Year. 2. Brady MVP - so on and so on.... All this is doing is teaching children that cheating any way you can to win is OK. Please help me explain to Trenton that this is not OK ..."

That was Jan. 12. Here it is May 14, and there might be a way to explain to a 9-year-old what happens to cheaters.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell met with former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh on Tuesday in New York. Walsh was a member of a Patriots video crew that made it a common practice to tape opponents' coaching signals.

The practice came to light when New York Jets personnel alerted NFL officials that the Patriots were illegally taping. Jets coach Eric Mangini is a former Patriots assistant. NFL officials confiscated the camera and the videotapes.

Goodell fined Patriots coach Bill Belichick the NFL maximum of $500,000 and the Patriots $250,000 for spying. He also took away the Patriots' 2008 firstround draft choice.

We found out Tuesday that Belichick admitted three months ago that the taping went back to 2000. That's seven years of cheating, seven years of abusing the integrity of the game. And there's no suspension.

I thought integrity was the buzzword in sports these days. Barry Bonds, who had a new indictment filed against him Tuesday, can't find a job because of it. Sprinters are banned from track and field because of it.

Walsh entered the picture roughly three months ago because he supposedly had information and additional tapes. It was thought that both might be further damaging to the Patriots. Three months later, that's not the case.

The NFL learned nothing new from Walsh.

"The fundamental information that Matt provided is consistent with what we disciplined the Patriots for last fall," Goodell said in a Tuesday news conference. "...Essentially they were taping coaches signals against NFL policy."

Asked if he thought the scandal was over, Goodell replied: "I don't know where else I would turn."

Now the question remains, what does all this have to do with the questions of a 9-year-old boy? What lessons have been learned, if any? Can this somehow be educational?

The answers remain cloudy.

The Patriots were punished by the combined $750,000 fine and loss of a 2008 first-round draft pick. So, one could say they got in trouble for their cheating and paid the cost. Let's take a closer look at that.

The money is a drop in the bucket for Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Belichick. According to Forbes, Kraft is worth more than $1.1 billion.

And the draft pick? The Patriots would've drafted 31st. They lost that. But they still had a first-round pick that they got from the Atlanta Falcons.

So, the punishment was taking away money from somebody who won't miss it and taking away the 31st pick in the first round while leaving what ended up being the 10th pick.

Oooh. That's being stern. My 6-year-old hits harder than that.

It's easy to understand why a 9-year-old would think they got away with cheating. Literally, they didn't. Theoretically, the Patriots are probably smiling inside knowing that they got away with it, and it's all over.

For Trenton, you tell him the truth.

Sometimes the politics in big business stink. Sometimes people do shady things and, seemingly, they go unpunished. And sometimes all is not fair, but we have to deal with it.

That's life.

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Columnist Milo Bryant can be

reached at 636-0252 or milo.bryant@gazette.com.