By Brad Locke
January 23, 2004

(AgapePress) - If you're a prominent sports figure, and you get caught in a compromising situation, be it a DUI, illegal gambling, or an illicit night on the town, don't worry. It shouldn't damage your reputation. You did nothing wrong. You broke no laws.

You simply exercised "poor judgment."

That's right, it's all a matter of perception. At the time, the choice you made seemed perfectly logical and OK. In your opinion, there was nothing wrong with downing a case and then getting behind the wheel. You made an honest mistake, or you were ill-informed as to what the consequences of your actions would be.

I am, you realize, being facetious. Unfortunately, many people think this way, especially sports figures. Take the case of Louisville assistant basketball coach Kevin Willard, who was caught driving his car with nearly twice the blood alcohol level limit. Head coach Rick Pitino said, "There is a silver lining in every cloud, and the silver lining in this cloud is that a tremendous error in judgment was made, but nobody got hurt. That doesn't diminish the severity of what he did."

Pitino went on to say that Willard realized what a "mistake" he made. So let's give Pitino the benefit of the doubt. Let's assume he simply had a rare illiterate moment, and let's assume Willard knows he did something stupid.

There is such a proliferation of "poor judgment" utterances, however, that it can't simply be written off as a misused term. First, let's define the word "judgment." According to Webster's, it means "an opinion so pronounced; discernment." Letting Dennis Rodman play on your basketball team, that's "poor judgment." However, this phrase was used to describe the indiscretions of former Washington football coach Rick Neuheisel (gambling pool) and former Alabama coach Mike Price (let's not get into it).

It was also used to describe former Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy's behavior. This has been the most egregious abuse of the word "judgment" I have seen. Early last year, pictures of an inebriated Eustachy at a party surfaced in the Des Moines Register. In the pictures, Eustachy, a married man, was kissing and being kissed by co-eds (on the cheek). Eustachy admitted to the school's president and athletics director that he used "poor judgment."

You see what this does? It implies that under different circumstances, Eustachy's behavior would have been perfectly acceptable. He's a victim of circumstance. It's a way around admitting outright that he's sinned. Getting sauced and flirting with college girls is not a lapse in judgment, it's a sign of something much deeper, something that most people are scared to consider. (In Eustachy's case, it was a sign of alcoholism, which to his credit he acknowledged and sought treatment for.)

To so re-categorize sin as "poor judgment" is a sign of a complicit conscience. By silencing that little voice in our heads that says, "Don't do this!" we render morality moot. Every decision we make then becomes not a product of our moral capacity, but of our capacity for "good judgment."

This line of thinking is often encouraged by the offenders' superiors, who trot out the "poor judgment" excuse in order to lessen the severity of the situation and how it reflects upon them. They too are guilty of a complicit conscience. They only exacerbate the problem and certainly don't help the person in need of help.

Claiming "poor judgment" is a way to reduce the effect of shame, to avoid real internal examination. "Poor judgment" means you have imperfect ideas, not an imperfect conscience. It means the depths of your eternal soul go unexplored, leading to a rotting carcass in your being.

Life brings with it crucial decisions every day, especially for those in positions of power and/or celebrity. For the more visible among us, every misstep is blown up disproportionately, and that requires a greater sense of responsibility on that person's part.

Our conscience is there for a reason. God gave it to us so we would recognize at least basic differences between right and wrong on our own. His wisdom expands our conscience and is foundational to our laws and social values. Thus to reduce the significance of the conscience and all it encompasses is to reduce the significance of God.

To do that goes way beyond "poor judgment."