As another week comes and goes, there are more of L & O candidates. As I posted a while ago, I decided that there needed to be a PR Nightmare Award, and so I developed the L & O Award (or known as Liver & Onion Award– what can I say, I am a foodie!) 🙂 These individuals are involved in high profile PR nightmare cases that have graced the front pages of newspapers and are the among the main headlines on the Internet.
For this week, there are many candidates to choose from:
Marion Jones admitting she used steroids: As I said in my last post, it is about time she started telling the truth. Jones also plead guilty to lying to federal agents and is possibly facing jail time for her actions. Plus, she announced her retirement from track. This case is far from over I believe, and it will impact so many in track and field as well as other sports.
USATF’s statement on Jones: It is very interesting to see the dynamics of how this is being played out. First, the statement that is on the web site says the following: “USA Track & Field condemns drug use by any athlete, and we are extremely disappointed in Marion Jones and the lies she has told regarding her use of performance-enhancing substances.”
Okay, here is the thing– I believe that USATF could have done a lot in this situation. Their statement says that they are disappointed and how this is going to impact other athletes, but the key thing that is missing is what USATF is going to do about this. With the BALCO crisis and having “clean” athletes like Justin Gatlin test positive for drugs, you have to start looking at the governing body of the sport to see what they are doing about the situation. So far, I believe that they have not been proactive enough. There needs to be harsher consequences for athletes and coaches (or other supporting staff) that do this. After a positive test, they are out of the sport. Period!
USATF also has to realize that their reputation in handling these positive tests among their athletes is also on the line. All we need to do is look back a few years and see what happened with CJ Hunter (who was married to Jones) and how he almost went to the Olympics after many failed drug tests (which USATF knew about). Hmmm, very interesting. I guess we will have to see what happens with Jones and this case.
Mike Nifong, city police & City of Durham getting sued by the three former Duke lacrosse players: It seems that Nifong and Duke can’t seem to escape this crisis. After it was proven that the duke players were innocent, Nifong was disbarred, spent a day in jail, and is now being sued by the three players. The president of Duke recently made a statement to apologize to the students and families about the situation. Well, I think that it is a step in the right direction, but where was the president during the crisis? I think that this statement might be a little too late.
So you can see, there are a lot of PR Nightmares to look at from this week! Anyway, I hope that you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen 🙂
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