I heard a story on the news about an allegation of points-shaving for gambling purposes in the Auburn basketball program. The news anchor said Auburn officials said they had heard a rumor of an allegation, and were looking into it. That’s very disappointing! And I don’t mean about the Auburn basketball stuff. I was hoping the news anchor would say Auburn officials had heard “a rumor of a suspicion of an allegation”: It’s so wonderfully vague! Then it would be like that famous quote Winston Churchill made about Russia: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” But then again, if Auburn said that, we’d always remember it, and we’d never forget about the scandal, if there even is one. But one thing I think we all know by now is that it doesn’t matter if there is anything dishonest going on, so long as people think there is. So they must act like nothing is going on, even if there is. And even if there isn’t, they have to act like there is, because if they do nothing to address it, they look complicit. So you can’t win, once aspersions are cast, basically. (Which is why it’s so much fun to cast them, I guess. After all, where there is a rumor of a suspicion of an allegation of smoke, there must also hypothetically be real or fictional, or at least theoretical or suppositional fire, right? That’s just common sense.)
But I will say this: I think it’s pretty hard to prove someone had a bad day due to cheating, rather than just having a bad day. Some teams are better than others, so how can you assume someone would always score the same amount of points no matter who the opposing team is? By that logic, then every underdog must lose, or else someone must be cheating on the overdog squad, and that’s silly. (Maybe it’s the tortured “dog” metaphor that’s the problem here, but it doesn’t seem logical to me, anyway, especially the part where someone is torturing dogs! That’s just mean! And another famous athlete got in trouble for doing that, so athletes shouldn’t harm dogs. It’s totally out of fashion!) If it turns out someone had money or a big gambling debt riding on the outcome of a game, and they made a huge difference in causing an unexpected loss, then maybe I’d look at it; but otherwise, it’s almost silly. Nobody likes to lose, especially when their future generally depends on winning. But it sometimes happens, I guess, that people will cheat to shave points. And then, kick them off the team. Oh, and also you must get a teary-eyed little kid to say: “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” (Even if their name is not Joe: them’s the rules, don’t blame me.)
