Moral and ethical dilemmas come up often in sports.  Perhaps this is because so much is riding on the outcomes of sporting events.  However, making ethical decisions looks and means different things at different levels of competition.  We’ve all heard the stories of pro golfers who have called penalty strokes on themselves when they might otherwise not have been caught. While this is certainly admirable, is calling yourself out with 10,000 dollars on the line more important than not cheating to win a 10 dollar bet with your friend on the golf course? I personally don’t think so.  The average sports viewer is usually caught up in making sure that elite athletes are maintaining the “integrity” of their sport.  Whenever a professional athlete is caught cheating, they are immediately vilified and labeled as being unworthy of any further accolades.  But somehow cheating during a community league basketball game or on the golf course with your friends is a little bit more “acceptable.” General ethical principles are theoretically the same in all levels of sport.  But we, myself included, tend to think that the usual rules don’t apply to us.  Therein lies the problem.  If no one thinks that the rules apply to them, why do we have rules and standards in the first place?  To fix the problem of cheating to get ahead in sports, we must start educating kids at a young age on what playing fair really means.  Because if athletes aren’t taught ethical principles at a young age, why should we expect them to carry them out when they begin participating in higher levels of sport?