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Navigating the polarizing issues in sports

A moral compass is used in reference to a person’s ability to judge what is right and wrong and to act accordingly.

The needle of professional sports’ moral compass has been spinning wildly over the past few months. When it comes to showing us the right way, it seems that true north could be anywhere.

The infamous elevator video of former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice hitting his then fiancee, Janay Palmer, was revealed on Sept. 8 by TMZ. The brutality of the attack was shocking to all, including football’s key decision-makers in Baltimore and New York City. The national furor caused the Ravens to terminate Rice’s contract and the NFL to suspend him. As this story continues to unfold, many are confused as to why the new video evidence was any more heinous than Rice dragging Palmer’s unconscious body out of the elevator in the original video. Rice’s actions should have pink-slipped him from the NFL when it was first shown in February. Instead, it merited a two-game suspension followed by an NFL reset on the penalties due to arrests for domestic violence. The NFL states that, “The new video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today.” Where was the moral compass of Commissioner Roger Goodell, the NFL, Ravens management, local law enforcement and all Rice supporters pointing in February?

Recent revelations of a 2-year-old internal management memo pointing out the racial makeup of Atlanta Hawks fans from team majority owner Bruce Levenson reopened a wound for the NBA that was just starting to heal. We know there is a problem when millions of fans are spending more time discussing court cases and not game outcomes on the court.

Fans are being educated on the complexities of constitutional and legal definitions of due process. No one will minimize the sacrifices that so many have made to give us these due process rights, but how about having the big four sports leagues use the moral compass as they are working through their due process?

We live in an imperfect world. Sports represent a daily microcosm of life. If there are any positives to take from the societal issues of domestic violence, racism, long-term health issues from concussions, performance-enhancing drugs, DUIs, illegal gun possession and other pitched battles between right and wrong, it may be that sports can act as magnifying glass so that we can become more educated on how we move forward.

There will be unwelcome events affecting all corners of the sports landscape in the months to come. The raw emotions generated by the Rice videos have opened and brought focus to a national conversation on the complexities of domestic violence, just as Donald Sterling’s addled buffoonery brought proactive positive conversations on addressing racism into our homes and workplaces.

The cautionary tale in these burning bright societal issues in the sports world is that we seem to have a nanosecond attention span, which doesn’t bode well for creating long-term systemic change. The names Floyd Landis, Richie Incognito, Manti Te’o, Jerry Sandusky, V. Stiviano and the late Al Campanis among many others show how quickly we can forget.

The attraction of our favorite sport is all about the journey. Every team uses a different road map on how they plan to win a championship. We celebrate the players’ superhuman abilities while many times overlooking their human frailty.

It is incumbent upon all those in the world of sports to check their moral compass along the way.

Andy Dolich (andy.dolich@gmail.com) is managing director of U.S. sports practice for Odgers Berndtson and has held team executive posts in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NASL.

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