LIFETIME BANS!!!

One of the best things that happens to me once and a while is a kid I coach comes up to me and tells me to think about a situation differently. Imagine the moment. I have been involved in sports for over 30 years and a kid who has a fraction of that experience says "Coach would you think about this differently." And I do and they are right and I was wrong. It feels like your world changes. Why was I so willing to hold onto that thought. 

My generation's approach to performance enhancing drug issues in sports has been give the culprit a second chance. Maybe they had a lapse in judgement. Maybe it was an accident. Give them another chance after a one or two year suspension. The threat of suspension will deter most people. 

The result of that thinking has been the explosion of use of performance enhancing drugs in all sports from Olympic sports to professional sports. Giving people a second -- and third -- chance has made a percentage of athletes in all sports cut corners and give performance enhancing drugs a try or as Lance Armstrong told us now 10 years ago -- if you want to win you have to dope. The reality is there is something about human nature that at some point in the right situation many of us will cheat at sports. This year the situation has grown so bad that governing bodies of sport are unable to sanction countries who have systematic state sponsored doping programs. Leading to articles saying we should just give up on testing 

Last night Lily King -- a 19 year old Hoosier -- told us older folks maybe we need to think about the problem differently. Performing on the biggest stage of the world is a privilege. To keep that privilege you need to be clean. If you are caught doping, you are banned from sport for life. 

Lifetime bans from sport... I used to think it was too harsh. I used to think everyone deserved a second chance. My generations thinking hasn't worked. It's time for us to admit it. 

I hope other clean athletes will use the big stage of the Olympics to demand the same thing for the future just like Lily King did -- #LIFETIME BANS.