Swallow the pea on whistleblowers

One thing about being college-educated is that you learn never to stop asking questions.\nA recent edition of ESPN's Outside the Lines focused on whistleblowers in college sports. The show reported some of the physical and psychological effects as well as threats suffered by those who had reported violations of NCAA rules by their own schools. IU professor Murray Sperber was one of the guests, but the most interesting part of the show was a profile of Jan Gangelhoff.\nGangelhoff, a former tutor and office manager with the University of Minnesota Athletics Department, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press in March 1999 right before the Gophers' first-round NCAA Tournament game that she had written approximately 400 papers and take-home tests over a six-year period for Gophers' players. She also said then-coach Clem Haskins knew about it and had even asked her not to write too well so the players' professors wouldn't become suspicious. (By the way, she failed. A professor called one of Gangelhoff's papers one of the best he's seen in 40 years of teaching.)\nWhen Gangelhoff explained why she decided to go public with her allegations, she was noticeably selfless. "They're not easy choices, but (the players will) be better people for it," she said.\nLater, Haskins was involved in an embarrassing lawsuit against the university involving his $1.5 million contract buyout where both sides agreed that Haskins was a liar, but Haskins argued that the university should have known he was a liar.\nMeanwhile, Gangelhoff was charged with fraud but had the charges dropped. She was threatened and suffered from depression.\nGangelhoff got quite the flak for it. A news source even opined that Gangelhoff used and manipulated the media to make her seem self-righteous and that the Pioneer Press did not bother to question her credibility because they knew they were on to a juicy story and after all she had participated in the ruse. (The Pioneer Press won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the scandal.)\nTo attack Gangelhoff for a wavering conscience ignores the bottom line. She made public what happened even though what she had to say was very unpopular. And she didn't lie.\nFan reaction toward bombshell allegations in sports is always odd that way. The truth hurts. We'd rather deal in conjecture and innuendo. After all, what is more fun than rumors and suppositions?\nSammy Sosa gets caught with a corked bat, and Rick Reilly, the Sports Illustrated columnist, insinuates that if Sosa is willing to cork his bat, then maybe he is willing to do steroids as well. What utter baloney. Steroids can kill a person; cork makes a player's bat feel lighter. If Reilly ran the world, somebody caught jaywalking should be put in jail for life because if they are willing to break a law, they might be willing to commit murder.\nReilly has won eight National Sportswriter of the Year awards, and since I think Reilly is terrible, maybe I could say that Reilly must have some pictures of those that vote for National Sportswriter of the Year naked with farm animals because I cannot explain why Reilly has won this honor even once. Heck, you can't prove that Reilly doesn't have such pictures.\nBut that's just dealing with the same conjecture and innuendo that people like Reilly do.\nFans love to claim all kinds of heinous behavior if it supports their previously held beliefs. People take guys like Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti seriously when they make claims on how many players are using steroids. The NBA playoffs are fixed every year so the Lakers win. If Bob Knight behaves like that during games, then what must he be like during practice? Every Olympic athlete is juiced, especially the medal winners. \nSince those claims can't be disproven easily, they live and fester. Those making the claims wait for the I-told-you-so moment that might or might not come.\nIf that I-told-you-so moment does arrive, many don't want to believe it. But we the public need to keep asking questions. There might be a lot of Jan Gangelhoffs out there.\nA sports journalist who doesn't care to ask the important questions is no better than the lazy athlete who feels like he or she needs to take steroids or have somebody write papers for them.\nInstead, we glorify sports journalists in idiotic shows like Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption, where their ability to entertain is more valued than any ability to report.\nThat's sad because the truth sets us all free eventually.