Athletes party?

It's amazing what passes for major news in the United States these days. Last week while a showdown with Iran regarding its nuclear weapons program grew closer, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lie in a coma, and while the bird flu made it to Europe, the major U.S. news outlets were fixated on a skier's admission that he partied. A young, professional athlete drinks and parties? I'm shocked, simply shocked.\nThe athlete in question is downhill skier Bode Miller, who admitted in a "60 Minutes" interview that he had skied "smashed" and sometimes partied the night before races. The story was predictably hyped by CBS, but soon became a news story in its own right as the skiing authorities threatened to bar Miller from the upcoming Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy and the U.S. Ski Team pondered whether to drop him from the team, even though he is the first American in more than 20 years to win the skiing World Cup. Before you knew it, all three major networks were covering Miller's mea culpa on the evening news.\nIs the fact that Miller parties too much a good thing? No. Should he be criticized for skiing drunk? Yes. Is his behavior a major news story? No. Miller is hardly the first professional athlete to admit that he parties. To hear the U.S. media talk about it, you'd think his admission was something new and shocking. Ever heard of Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle? Both were notorious for staying out late drinking the night before games. Let's not even talk about more unsavory examples like this year's Minnesota Vikings. \nAs surprising as the amount of coverage the story received was the moralistic tone of the coverage. I don't think an athlete drinking before competing is a good thing, but he's not breaking any laws, and being drunk certainly can't be considered a performance enhancer. Miller is an adult who admittedly made a bad choice. This isn't the end of civilization, nor even a particularly significant sign of a decline in morals. It's a young person who makes millions doing what millions of young people do. Miller's partying wasn't even shown on TV like, say, the beer and champagne orgies in the White Sox clubhouse after each clinching victory. All that alcohol got shown to millions of impressionable young people with nary a peep of outrage.\nBode Miller is certainly an interesting story in the run-up to the Olympics, but it would be nice if the media could get a grip and find some perspective on this story. It was an interesting interview on "60 Minutes" about a quirky athlete and that should have been the end of it. But since admissions of shocking celebrity behavior seem to generate news, I'd like to get something off of my chest. Just like Bode Miller, sometimes I've been in "really tough shape" at the start of a class after being out all night partying.