来源：《基督科学箴言报》
原文刊登日期：2022年2月9日
A new course at the University of New Haven offers this promise to students: “We’re going to train you to protect the sports that you love.” Designed to provide tools and skills for people to spot corruption in sports, the course is well timed.
纽黑文大学的一门新课程向学生们承诺：“我们将训练你们保护自己喜爱的运动。”该课程旨在为人们提供发现体育腐败的工具和技能，其出现恰逢其时。
With gambling on sports now legal in 30 states since a 2018 Supreme Court ruling, this year’s Super Bowl is expected to set a record for the number of Americans wagering on the championship game. Total spending on bets is estimated to be unprecedented $7.6 billion. And along with these records are rising concerns that gambling on pro football will, as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell once put it, “fuel speculation, distrust, and accusations of game-fixing.”
自2018年最高法院作出裁决以来，体育赌博已经在30个州合法化，今年的超级碗预计将创下美国人在冠军赛上下注的纪录。据估计，投注的总支出估计达到前所未有的76亿美元。随着这些记录的出现，人们越来越担心，如NFL总裁罗杰·古德尔曾经说过的那样，在职业橄榄球场上赌博会“会助长投机、不信任和操纵比赛的指控。”
The National Football League is already under a cloud of suspicion over how it maintains the integrity of its games – even as it partners with the gambling industry. This month, former Miami coach Brian Flores alleged in a lawsuit that the Dolphins team owner offered him $100,000 per game in 2019 to intentionally lose in order to improve the team’s ability to draft better players. That charge was followed by a similar complaint against the Cleveland Browns by former coach Hue Jackson.
全美职业橄榄球大联盟在与博彩业合作的同时，在如何保持其比赛的诚实性方面已经受到了怀疑。本月，前迈阿密队主教练布莱恩·弗洛雷斯在一场诉讼中称，海豚队老板在2019年每场向他提供10万美元，故意输掉比赛，以提高球队选拔更好球员的能力。在这项指控之后，克利夫兰布朗队的前教练休·杰克逊也对球队提起了类似的指控。
If the allegations are proved to be true, football fans might begin to doubt the league’s official data – which is used widely by gamblers. While most pro sports have set up systems to watch for match-fixing and betting irregularities, the rapid increase in legal sports gambling will test those systems.
如果这些指控被证实属实，球迷们可能会开始怀疑被赌徒广泛使用的联赛官方数据。虽然大多数职业体育都设立了监视操纵比赛和赌博违规行为的系统，但快速增长的合法体育赌博将考验这些系统。
“The NFL has always prided itself in ‘Every game matters, no matter what.’ OK, and now all of a sudden, it looks like that’s not quite true,” Richard McGowan, a Boston College associate professor, told The Boston Globe.
波士顿学院副教授理查德·麦高恩在接受《波士顿环球报》采访时说：“NFL一直以‘每场比赛都很重要，不管发生什么’为荣。好吧，现在突然之间，这似乎不是真的。”
Cheating scandals in athletic competitions, from bribing of players to doping, have rocked many sports worldwide. Yet they need not prevent sports from returning to the purity of their ideals. Athletics, writes Michael Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard University, must “fit with the excellences essential to the sport.” Rules for sport must make sure sports do not “fade into spectacle, a course of amusement rather than a subject of appreciation.”
体育比赛中的作弊丑闻，从贿赂运动员到服用兴奋剂，震动了世界各地的许多体育项目。然而，他们不需要阻止竞技体育回归其理想的纯洁性。哈佛大学政治哲学家迈克尔·桑德尔写道，竞技体育必须“符合这项运动所必需的优秀品质”。竞技体育规则必须确保其不会“沦为奇观，成为一种娱乐，而不是一个欣赏的对象”。
For sports fans, such appreciation can include joining together to safeguard a sport. There’s now even a university course in how to do that.
对于体育迷来说，这种赞赏可以包括团结起来捍卫一项运动。现在甚至有一门大学课程是关于如何做到这一点的。