Here’s a hot question for the wide-eyed US Anti Doping Agency zealot Travis Tygart and I don’t think he will be able to come up with a persuasive answer.
Tygart, who considers himself the World’s Foremost Authority (on all topics), cannot be oblivious to the fact that we remain mired in a terrible economic pit in this country.
Taxes are going up and up while municipal and state government agencies are services are, of necessity, being stripped to the bone.
Teachers are being fired in large groups. Public libraries are restricting their hours of operation. Schools are shutting down.
So, while America struggles to keep school and library doors open, my question to Tygart, whose agency gets 66 2/3 of its revenues from Uncle Sam, is simple.
Why am I, and everyone else who reports and duly pays their taxes to the federal government, paying even a dime so that USADA can support Tygart’s “Clean Athletes” random blood testing campaign?
Why am I and everyone else paying anything into the USADA’s annual budget so that multimillionaire athletes such as Floyd Mayweather and Sugar Shane Mosley can get the Olympic style drug testing regimen duplicated in boxing?
USADA Bossman Travis Tygart should explain why battered American taxpayers should foot 66 2/3 of the bill for his agency’s work in playing drug detectives for multimillionaire pro athletes such as Pacquiao, Mayweather and Mosley, Michael Marley asserts
Tygart recently told the Nevada boxing commission, when he was not busy spitting in their faces and telling them it was raining, that the casino industry should fork over the money for such drug testing.
He also suggested that pay per view TV revenues be hit to pay the costs for such examinations.
Those ideas went over like having screen doors on submarines.
Every day now, I lean to the view that we ought to scrap all drug testing for all athletes who can afford to pay for it themselves.
Is protecting the “Clean Athlete,” which is Tygart’s code word for Mr. Mayweather, more important than operating our public schools, libraries, colleges and hospitals?
Of course not so why does Uncle foot two thirds of USADA’s operating budget?
Do we just want to throw good money after bad, just shove it down a rathole when even the vaunted Olympic regiment has caught just ONE cheater, a British rugby player using steroids after eight years of testing?
And don’t tell me Olympic athletes are all pure amateurs when you see the “Flying Tomato,” that snowboarding guy boasting on “60 Minutes” about all his lucrative endorsements and other deals, the total of which have him a rich, young man.
Why should an American taxpayer pay one penny for his drug testing?
I’m sending this column to Zealot Tygart and I will let you know what his answer is, if any.
Maybe there are many boxers cheating with designer drugs.
I don’t think boxing is immune to such skulduggery in a way that big time cycling is not.
But, again, I don’t want to pay for drug testing for Lance Armstrong or for Manny Pacquiao.
Let the sports, let the athletes pay their own way.
Certainly, not even a Johnny One Note like Tygart would propose that American taxpayers should foot even a portion of the durg testing for the Lakers or the Yankees.
Then why are prizefighters any different?
Tygart has invaded boxing mainly because he thinks he can shove his blood testing program into this disorganized sport with its unprotected, non-union athletes in a way that will never happen with the NFL:, NBA and Major League Baseball, where the players are under the protective shield of strong unions.
The American public has no vital interest in bankrolling this drug police scheme of Tygart’s or anyone else’s.
I mean, what’s next blood testing for Eminem or Miley Cyrus before and after every concert?
We’re talking about sports and entertainment, not protecting our borders or airport security here.
Let “Clean Athlete” Mayweather pay the expenses if he wants to be somewhat certain that “Unclean Athlete” Pacquiao, even though he has never failed a drug test before or after any bout, is not loaded up with EPO, HGH or XYZ.
I am sure Zealot Tygart will vehemently disagree as he looks to line the pockets of himself and his agency?
Let the fighters getting multimillion dollar purses pay their own way for drug testing (Pacland)
Are you and I paying two thirds of Zealot Tygart’s six figure salary? If so, why?
Tygart seems to take contrary views on everything as comes off as an All Or Nothing guy. I think he is sincere but at all times motivated for the personal gain of his career and the advancement of his employer.
But, then again, if he was the head guy at BP, he’d probably say that US taxpayers should pay to clean up all the spilled oil on the Gulf Coast.
I can imagine him feeling that way about “the little people.”
As for the beleaguered American taxpayer, Tygart might say, “Let them eat tarballs on the beach.”
That’s how zealots think.
