Quote (WidowMaKer_MK @ 9 Sep 2015 05:02)
...clearly you have never player a single down of organized football . Cheating in football starts at the Pop Warner level , so much so that they finally had to institute picture i.d.'s for the players to prevent coaches from bringing in ringers . I've seen kids as young as 11 years old abusing caffeine powder for that extra edge , coaches from other teams filming practices and intentional violations of the weight restrictions which are there to protect the players . I had one kid show up for registration with a birth certificate that said he was 12 years old while sporting a full mustache . The very worst of it was coaches encouraging their players to intentionally injure the kids on the other team with their helmets . When cheating is encouraged from the very beginning you can bet the mentality remains all the way through high school , college and the pro's .
At bold this was a very rare happening, and even in my day intentional spearing was a immediate removal from the game. I only witnessed it once we played E. St. Louis and our MLB speared their RB. as/per our def coaches asking he broke his face mask and ran the center piece into his forehead, it was a pretty ugly wound, but he did take out the RB for the game with bruised ribs.
I played tackle football from 3rd. grade to my varsity year, and yeah there were coaches that might exploit a rule here and there or a friend of a alumn may happen to tape a practice of a team that you haven't played in a while but honestly those cheats didn't matter much at those levels of play. A good block and a attempted arm tackle would mean a score more often than reading a defense properly.
I think the difference is the Pro.s like it or not have a huge fan base, and with it carry an element of hero worship from a lot of kids. When kids see the Pats. cheat time and again and succeed, and win the SuperBowl it sends a shitty message. I don't like the fact that men who get charged and convicted of felonies are allowed to return to the sport. I think there is enough talent out there to be able to keep a clean good sportsmanship image. Kids don't need to see cheaters prosper.