Southern Methodist University’s football program got the death penalty.

 The University of Alabama paid a high school coach $200,000 for a defensive tackle.

Indiana is in trouble again because of the actions of a, now, former coach that continued to break rules committed at a former job to catch an advantage.

The scandal hovering over Indiana and former coach Kelvin Sampson is yet another black eye for sports in general.

Spygate with the New England Patriots is back in the news again.

Steroids has basically destroyed the credibility of track and field, cycling and if not for the baseball owners being firmly entrenched in the “good old boy” network, baseball would be in worse shape than it is because everyone would know that Bud Selig was knowledgeable and was complicit in the steroid era of baseball.

Even in an entity like the Olympic games, which is, more than any other entity, based on an ideal of fair play, hard work and good competition, it is covered with cheating.

Innuendo and the back channel all over the country suggest, imply and even have witness to the fact that athletic departments, booster groups, professional organizations and all sorts of folks in sports cheat, break rules or at the very least bend the rules beyond the spirit of their intent.

Is this the world we live in?

I always hate to compare eras because they just cannot be compared but for this purpose it might be useful because it does raise or lend credibility to the questions we ask …

Has the almighty dollar brought about the enormous levels of cheating and inauthentic actions when it comes to sports?

I have often mused that in the 1970s when many players in leagues like the National Football Association and the National Basketball Association were paid salaries that forced them to sell insurance or sell cars in the off-season, the value of their athletic performance wasn’t based on money.

With the millions and even billions of dollars that are poured into sports, with the thousands of jobs that are dependant on those sports, with all of the livelihoods and families that exist based off the income received in sports, everything has changed.

With the rise in dollars paid to professional athletes, the incentive to cheat has been raised.

With the pressure placed on coaches because of salaries, the incentives to bend the rules and/or flat out cheat, is there.

With the values of college athletic programs, universities place into question the integrity of their schools to allow athletes that wouldn’t be allowed in any other way to attend the university except for the value they bring to the table as athletes.

If that is not against the rules, it could be considered unethical and at the very least unfair for the regular student population that could not get into the university with the same academic resume.

In so many ways we have been desensitized to cheating in sports. We have been desensitized to a point where we question any performance that is out of the ordinary.

So it ends up being the honest but phenomenal athlete that pays the price for the cheating of everyone. It is the university that does it right but is riddled with rumors of cheating that pays the price for the schools that cheat.

All of these questions and issues bring about the cynicism that we experience and live with every day in sports.

Maybe more than the actual football that I see, maybe that is the reason that I get so excited when I turn a corner and see Friday night lights.

Even understanding the ails of high school sports, it might be the best and purest form of competition.