One of the great things about being obsessive is… you do not worry about it and enjoy being obsessive. Last night I bought, downloaded from iTunes and then listened to all of the The Eagles 1970s era studio albums. It was great to relive those songs and years of my life again. In reading the obituaries and tributes to Frey, I had not appreciated he co-wrote almost all the hits of the band. I had always focused on fellow Texan Don Henley, who was the lead singer, but Frey provided as much of the structure for the band. So I hope you will consider visiting iTunes and checking out some of your favorites. As my 83 year-old mother told me today, she knew some famous rock and roller had died when she recognized Take It Easy on the radio.

In another form, obsession can simply be recognized as going on a roll, so today I continue my week-long exploration of the intersection of the world of sports and corruption. In a New York Times (NYT) article, entitled “Sports Atones, but some Athletes Seek More Than an Apology”, Christopher Clarey wrote about restitution in the sports world for those who are victims of illegal performance enhancers. He noted that in the realm of track and field, the reallocation of medals has “become standard practice – depressing testimony to how often the sports event you just watched turns out to be a sham”. Yet as two-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson said in an interview with Mishal Husain for the BBC that those athletes cheated out of medals by dopers “never had the opportunity to stand on the podium – and they should have”.

There are two immediate problems with this approach. The first is the one faced by professional cycling when Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles; there was no other clean rider who could be awarded the title. Indeed what do you do when the sport is corrupt from top to bottom and it is both the athletes and the international organization involved in the doping?

The second is the problem more often faced in track and field, the length of time between awarding the medal immediately after the event to the reallocating many years later. The article pointed to the example of Adam Nelson, who was reallocated the gold medal for winning the Shot Put in the 2004 Sydney Olympics some nine years later, “when retesting resulted in the Ukrainian Yuriy Bilonog’s being stripped of his gold.”

But here is the rub for this second problem; nine years later is too late to capitalize on your success in a financial manner. Nelson was quoted in the article, “Losing out on the gold medal in 2004, that cost me over $2 million in future earnings.” Another athlete quoted in the article, the 800-meter runner Alysia Montano, originally finished fifth in her event in the same Olympics. However the disqualification of two Russian runners who finished second and third moved her to be reallocated the bronze medal. The article stated, “Montano estimated her lost bronze medal had cost her $500,000.”

These issues have led to a discussion about how to best compensate those athletes who were victims in these corruption schemes to cheat. The article stated, “But what about a more radical approach: paying reparations to those who were cheated? “I think that’s quite tricky legally, but look, I’m not ruling anything in, and I’m not ruling anything out at the moment,” Sebastian Coe, Diack’s successor as president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, said in a recent interview.” As Clarey stated, “Doping is fraud, and so is covering it up”. I would add that when national sports federations, such as the Russian federation, accused in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA’s) report and then the international governing body, the International Amateur Athletic Foundation (IAAF) was extorting payments to suppress positive drug tests, you certainly have moved into corruption.

There were numerous questions raised in the article about how some type of compensation might work. One possibility was a class action lawsuit where money damages would be awarded. However, it seems to me that there would not be the requisite commonality and typicality mandated by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. While not directly addressing this class action suggestion, Lord Coe said, “the I.A.A.F. would examine the possibility of fining athletes who broke doping rules but said allocating money from those fines to the wronged could prove legally complicated. It could also prove premature: How to have confidence at this dire stage that the beneficiaries would be truly clean, either?”

Another proposal bandied about involved deferring some compensation until after the 10-year statute on the retesting of doping samples runs out. Clarey once again cited to Nelson who “proposes deferring compensation for athletes into a “fair play” fund, which could be bankrolled by the I.A.A.F., meet directors or sponsors. The idea? Keep a clean record for those 10 years, and collect a bonus.”

I think these retrospective penalties might provide some type of incentive to comply with the regulations around anti-doping but at the end of the day, it is the culture of sports that has to change. Anyone who grew up playing sandlot, junior high or high school sports and beyond knows about cheating and cheaters. If you had a coach who simply said that his teams would not play that way or certainly not win that way, then you learned not to cheat. While the coach sets the tone at the top, it is players who implement these lessons.

In the world of international track and field, it is incumbent on the athletes. Nelson said, “You can’t change a culture just by making new policies. We athletes need to start talking much more openly.” The article went on to state, “Nelson and others also believe it is time for athletes to play a much more proactive and collective role, policing themselves and changing the culture from the ground up instead of relying on the top-down model that has failed miserably. That clearly means much more of a neighborhood-watch approach.” Lord Coe even went so far to call for “more whistle-blowers”.

Clarey ended his article with the following quote from Lord Coe, “But we know the difference between poor sportsmanship and jealousy and when something just doesn’t smell right. Athletes know that better than you do. We truly do, so now we have to find a way to address that.”

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