By Rick Foster

February 18th, 2008

The Sun Chronicle

FOXBORO - Professional athletes cheat by taking performance-enhancing drugs.

A coach disregards league orders against videotaping opponents and when caught, blames a difference in "interpretation."

Young athletes are constantly bombarded with conflicting messages from professional sports - be sportsmanlike, but trash-talk your opponents; lie, but don't get caught.

However, questionable or unsportsmanlike conduct by role models need not poison lessons youngsters take from sport, says Jeffrey Pratt Beedy, a leading sports ethicist and founder of an international program to use sports as a positive influence in children's development.

"Sports can be a powerful medium, either positive or negative, for the social and emotional development of children," said Beedy, founder of Sports Plus Global, which seeks to use sports as a common language to promote peace and healthy patterns of development in kids.

Read on...