Cheating in Sports

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Fines have been handed down in “Deflategate.” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was suspended for four games and the Patriots were fined $1 million dollars and will lose some draft picks. That’s the punishments for using underinflated footballs in the Pat’s AFC championship win over the Colts earlier this year. Brad Cesmat, CEO of Sports360AZ.com, a sports news platform for Arizona, will talk about this latest episode of cheating in sports and what it means to the sporting world.

TED SIMONS: Tom Brady will miss the first four games of the season and his team will have to pay a $1 million fine and lose a number of future draft picks. This is the result of deflate gate, a cheating scandal that raises a number of questions regarding sports and society. Joining us now is Brad Cesmat, CEO of sports360az.com. An Arizona-based sports news platform. Good to see you, big guy.

Always good to be with you, big guy.

Let's get going here now you, your reaction to deflate gate and to the penalties.

BRAD CESMAT: They were extreme. They will go through the appeal process. I would be surprised if it was still four games, when it's all said and done. I think that you may see this go very far, to the legal end of things at some point, the agent for Tom Brady, and his comments were very much throwing gasoline on the fire along the lines of my client, has been damaged. He's the biggest name in the NFL, Ted. To take him down as the commissioner has done for four games, what will the relationship be in the appeals' process? Goodell, will he oversee his relationship with Bob craft, the owner of the Patriots, has been very close, and is that irreparably damaged? There is a lot of moving parts. 24 hours into the story, and I still believe that we will see the appeals' process go through by the first part of June, but it does bring up a whole lot of questions.

TED SIMONS: It does, indeed, and the first question is, what was the NFL's message in all of this?

BRAD CESMAT: Don't cheat. And if Tom Brady turns over his cell phone, maybe you and I are not having this discussion. The fact that he decided to be so stands-offish, I will answer questions but the last thing I will do is give you my phone so you could go through that and see if there were text messages between myself and the employees. Now, the way that they went through this process, they could have gone to the two employees, the Patriots looked at their cell phones, and seen the text messages, as well, so I think that Brady, on that one, came across looking like, I'm not going to cooperate. We're going to bring the hammer and bang you over the head with it.

TED SIMONS: The coverup is almost always, often, I should say, worse than the incident, but as far as the incident is concerned. Was this cheating?

BRAD CESMAT: In my opinion, no. There is gamesmanship, ok. There is a line here, Ted. So when Charles Barkley is with the Phoenix Suns, what was he known best for on defense? Floppy. If you play defense, and you lean on somebody, and you step back and look like somebody shot you out of a cannon, that's gamesmanship. To Tom Brady, did he intentionally cheat on this or was this gamesmanship on the part of the organization?

TED SIMONS: Isn't it gamesmanship, though, when you can flop, and I can flop? But in this situation, only -- well, what we think is, only Brady and his minions or the Patriots, they were the ones who set a ball to a standard without anyone knowing that they messed with the equipment. It's something that the other team, the colts, couldn't have done, and that seems like cheating.

BRAD CESMAT: Well, I think that plumber on my shell, and they said that we should have more say over the footballs and having access to the footballs. What is the difference over what Tom Brady did versus scuffing up a baseball if you are a baseball pitcher, ok. I have talked to basketball players, and Eddie Johnson, the great shooter of the suns told me there were rims tighter on one end than the other, and the basketballs would be inflated to a certain level. Tom Brady got caught and Tom Brady, because he's the biggest name -- if this was the backup quarterback for the Vikings, nobody would care. Because it's Tom Brady, what do you tell your son who is in sports saying, I have got my number 12 jersey. What do you mean he cheated?

TED SIMONS: Well, what do you tell kids about this?

BRAD CESMAT: I tell my sons and my daughters, I am your role model. He's not your role model. He's fine to watch out on the field. There are a lot of kids that don't have two-parent households. It brings up another Avenue that we can discuss. And he had gamesmanship. He did not play by the rules. And thus, he's set down. Do I think that he intentionally cheated and laid there at night and said, I am going to get over on somebody? Still threw the football, still won the game by a lot of points, did he look for an advantage? Is there an advantage? When you play sports, if a call is missed, if you are trying to find an advantage on the opponent, there are life lessons in sports, not to get too remedial.

TED SIMONS: But I want to because I want to talk about the concept of cheating in sports, and how it seems to have changed over the years. I remember when people used to be, to berate Larry Byrd because they gave him an extra foul shot and he took it. They knew that was not right but he did it anyway. I remember back in those days.

BRAD CESMAT: I remember that in basketball. Danny ainge was the most hated person, if he was on the suns you loved him, but on any other team he was hated because he grabbed and tugged and pushed and did things that were viewed as well, he's cheating. That's dirty. No, he found a way to work around the rules that the people that enforced those rules. The referees didn't call it. Different sport, I understand, but he found a way to play through those.

TED SIMONS: last question. Sportsmanship. Is sportsmanship still a part of sports?

BRAD CESMAT: Yes. Yes. But, it's -- it's not a blanket statement now, Ted. There are teams that you look at when the San Antonio Spurs rubbed Steve Nash into a wall and disfigured his nose, that was not sportsmanship.

No, it wasn't.

It was not sportsmanship. And but, they go on and eliminate the suns, and yeah, and people of Phoenix were outraged by it.

TED SIMONS: That's my question. Sportsmanship took a holiday on that play. Is it taking a holiday from most of sports?

BRAD CESMAT: Let's go back to life lessons, there are times when things happen in life off sports and in business, that are not fair. When the housing meltdown happened in our country, were those guys thrown behind bars? Did they cheat? Sure they did. Yes, but they were not held, not held to a standard.

And he's being held to a standard but I think that Roger Goodell overstepped it, and ray rice gets two games for dragging a woman out of the elevator and you get four games because there is too much air in a football, and that makes no common sense to people.

TED SIMONS: It's always a pleasure talking with you. I miss our days on ktar.

Well, bring me back.

Good to see you.

BRAD CESMAT: Good seeing you, Ted.

Brad Cesmat:CEO of Sports360AZ.com

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