True-Sport-Report

prioritize winning—and sacrifice ethics
and health—erodes our trust in sport and
its inherent value.
Professional sport—and increasingly
college sport—is replete with stories of
cheating and doping during competition
and of immoral behavior off the field.
Unfortunately, these highly rewarded and
celebrated athletes could be our children’s
role models.
The Sport in America Report shows that
a majority of U.S. adults (75 percent)
agree that athletes’ use of performanceenhancing
substances is a violation of
ethics in sport. This is further underscored
by the fact that Americans rank the use of
performance-enhancing drugs as the most
serious problem facing sport today, closely
followed by the focus on money and the
criminal behavior of some well-known
athletes.
About This Report
As the nonprofit, independent entity
recognized by Congress to administer
the anti-doping program in the United
States for Olympic, Paralympic, and Pan
Am Games sports, USADA’s mission is
to preserve the integrity of competition,
inspire a commitment to the core
principles of true sport, and protect the
rights of U.S. athletes to compete healthy
and clean.
Recognizing that doping, at its core, is
not just a drug problem but also a values
issue, USADA understands that cheating
by doping is just one manifestation of
a fundamental ethical problem—the
willingness to win in sport at any cost.
This attitude undermines the intrinsic
value of sport and all that it offers—
physical, psychological, emotional, and
social benefits—and incurs serious health
and social costs to all who participate. It is
with this in mind that USADA’s vision is
as guardian of the values and life lessons
learned through true sport.
This report is a companion piece
to a recent USADA research project
that measured the attitudes, beliefs,
and behaviors of the nation’s general
population, as well as those of athletes
competing in sport under the auspices of a
National Governing Body (NGB) regarding
the impact of sport in our society. The
results of that study, What Sport Means in
America: A Study of Sport’s Role in Society,
were published in early 2011.
This report is based on an extensive
review of the literature surrounding sport
in America, in particular youth and sport
(see Box A). It follows a similar effort
conducted by the Canadian Centre for
Ethics in Sport in 2008, 13 which resulted in
What Sport Can Do: The True Sport Report,
an excellent compilation of what we know
about how “good sport can make a great
difference.”
This report covers the research
literature focused on the role of sport in
promoting health and wellness, as well
as social, emotional, and psychological
22