Last week the world of sports lost a member of its community. Charlie Francis, a coach of many Olympic athletes, died at the age 61 of Lymphoma. The legacy that Francis left is controversial. As a coach he utilized performance-enhancing drugs as part of his training program, affecting a significant number of athletes whose careers and health were put at risk. One of the most infamous of these athletes was Ben Johnson, an Olympic sprinter who, in 1988, was the first Olympian to have his gold medal stripped from him due to doping. When it was revealed that Francis had coached at least 10 other athletes who also used performance-enhancing drugs, he was banned by Athletics Canada. It became apparent that his idea of fair sport involved drug use.
Francis then moved to the United States and began working with athletes here, incorporating performance-enhancing drugs into their training programs as well. Among these athletes was Marion Jones, who was later stripped of five gold medals and lost millions of dollars in potential endorsements. During the BALCO investigation, she lied to two grand juries about her performance-enhancing drug use, a crime which she later admitted to. In 2008 Jones served a six-month sentence in federal prison. Ben Johnson and Marion Jones were athletes who were affiliated with Charlie Francis, and they have careers that are forever marred with the stain of performance-enhancing drugs.
The New York Times published an article last week in which they quoted me as saying, "[Francis] wasn't just an isolated coach, with an isolated athlete; he left this legacy that contaminated some of the greatest track stars of the world." While it can be said that athletes often know what they are getting themselves into by training with coaches who encourage and facilitate doping, coaches are ultimately responsible for instilling the values of healthy training, fair play, and positive competition. Charlie Francis is just one of many coaches who failed to achieve this standard.
More important than winning is preserving your body and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs will only harm your body, as well as physical and mental abilities in the long run. A good coach should recognize that. Additionally, it is the responsibility of coaches and athletes alike to maintain the essence of fair competition.
Taking pride in yourself and your achievements lays the foundation for healthy sport, and so it is important for an athlete to surround themselves with trainers, teammates, and parents who take positive approaches to sport. As a parent or mentor, be sure to do your homework when selecting a coach or anyone who is working with your youth. Look at their credentials and consider their core values and ethics around training. What else can you, as a parent or coach, do to foster a sense of positive sport and healthy competition in a young athlete you might know?
