Cheaters should pay

I'm not paid to be a role model. ... Parents should be role models.

The suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, winner of the last Super Bowl and a virtual lock to one day be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is the latest development in an ongoing conversation about cheating in sports, and even Americans who are uninterested in athletics should pay attention.

The National Football League on Monday suspended Brady for the first four games of next season for orchestrating or knowing about a scheme to deliberately deflate footballs, making them easier to throw during last season's AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts.

The advantage may not have been needed. The Patriots pummeled the Colts 45-7, and Brady threw better after the altered balls were discovered and replaced. But the NFL, not knowing whether this was a first-time violation, concluded Brady was guilty of "conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the game of professional football."

That assessment prompted incredulous gasps from those who remember the same league imposing only a two-game suspension on former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice after he knocked his fiancée unconscious in an Atlantic City casino elevator. Only after a video of the February 2014 incident became public did the NFL suspend Rice indefinitely.

The league's awkward handling of the Rice case and others - including the now-rescinded suspension of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Petersen, who pleaded no contest to reckless assault charges for beating his 4-year-old son - is likely the reason it came down so hard on Brady and his team, which was fined $1 million and lost two future draft picks.

The NFL wants to send a message to players and everyone else. Will it make a difference? Perhaps, but only briefly, since pro athletes are always trying to find an advantage. Baseball's "steroid era" supposedly ended in 2003, but players still find ways to hide their use of performance-enhancing drugs - just as they do in other sports.

Nonetheless, the Brady sanctions are important. In fact, their relevance transcends sports when you think about the win-at-any-cost attitude that's just as prevalent in corporate America. The last recession was brought on in large part by unscrupulous banking practices. Perhaps bankers should mimic Charles Barkley in urging children to look elsewhere for role models.

Barkley said children should look to their parents. That doesn't always work either. But it's preferable to encouraging children to emulate sports stars who don't care who or what is damaged in their pursuit of better ways to cheat.