Going beyond the Mitchell Report
Kudos to Barry Rozner for his Dec. 14 column "Dough! Mitchell whiffed" about George Mitchell's report on performance enhancing drugs in MLB.
Regrettably, Mitchell missed a unique opportunity to make a major contribution to the betterment of our society by simply saying MLB is an example of the rampant cheating in almost all sports in America.
His reported two-year, $20-million investigation only scratched the surface of a truly national scandal.
The commissioner and the owners in MLB knew this cheating was going on but didn't try to stop it because there was too much money at stake.
The same could be said of the NCAA and its member institutions about academic corruption and the likely use of performance enhancing drugs that not only keep academically unqualified college athletes eligible to play, but also enhance their game performance -- generating an ocean of money for participants in the college sports entertainment business.
NCAA and conference officials, college and university presidents, athletic directors, coaches and other participants will never admit that they won't do anything serious about academic corruption and the use of performance enhancing drugs because they are all too busy cashing in on the big money.
In any case, the Mitchell report could still help focus Congress on the need to take a hard look at sports-related cheating via performance enhancing drugs and academic corruption in institutions of higher education as well as in high schools.
The aim would be to improve transparency, accountability and oversight -- recommending rigorous testing regimens as necessary.
Frank G. Splitt
Mount Prospect