It's Cheap To Cheat

After reading Chew on This, a nonfiction book, I decided it was time to dive into a "fun book". I dwelled into my favorite book genre of sports, and decided to pick up the book, Last Shot by John Feinstein. I found this book in my high school library, and by the footnote of the title, "A Final Four Mystery", I knew I was in for a good read. I spent about 20 minutes everyday reading this book in my AP English III class, and about 20 minutes at home as well, this combined to be about 25 pages a day. This 251 page book would take me about 2 weeks to completely finish. Last Shot had me leaning on the edge of my seat when reading it, as it's plot twisted and turned throughout the book. Never before did I realize how crazy sport scandals can really become. Last Shot freshened me up on the results of cheating, and why you should never do it.

As I have progressed through high school, I have found that cheating the system will never workout in your favor, and their will always be repercussions for your actions. Last Shot is just another prime example of this idea. Susan Carol Anderson and Stevie Thomas (the two main characters in the book), were invited to cover the Final Four as journalists after winning an writing contest. As these two journalists interview, write, and think of bright stories, they end up uncovering a conspiracy for one of the final four teams star player to fix the championship game. Susan Carol and Stevie soon found out that there are outside forces that are making an final four star player to fix a game. Throughout the book it becomes an on going goose chase on who, and why they want to fix the game. By the end of the book, the conspirators get caught, showing that cheaters never get their way. "Hey, Chip, the world's a cold place sometimes. Cooperate and you'll be a millionaire in a couple of months.(Feinstein 55)", when I read this statement I finally realized what the whole purpose of fixing the game was. I also realized that people will cheat at literally almost anything to make money or do something for a greater cause for themselves, even if it means losing the most prestigious college basketball game. Hearing about "fixing games" growing up, I've never been able to comprehend peoples motives of doing it. I've always thought it must be money related, but in Last Shot money wasn't the only factor. Really thinking about, "match fixing" is simply just a simple way of cheating. Even though there are different levels of cheating, at all levels their are repercussions for your actions. Even if you get away with cheating there is always something to be lost which could be, valuable knowledge from school, trophies, and even friends. After finally catching the scandalous conspirators in the book, they were punished with repercussions, refreshing me of why cheating is bad. If we are truly honest with ourselves, there is something we cheat at every single day, whether making an illegal shortcut through a shopping center to make it home faster, or whether it's not running that extra five yards the coach tells you to run during suicides. Even though there are not punishments on the spot, these actions will always hurt you in some way. In, Last Shot the conspirators didn't think at first they were gonna get caught up, but little did they know they would end up too in the long run. Last Shot has just made me more aware of cheating, and has made me re-think many situations that I could have cheated in.

Connecting this book to the real world is quite easy, since there are so many sport scandals that have occurred throughout sports. A very well known sports scandal that almost everyone knows about is "Deflate-Gate". This scandal occurred in January of 2015 during the NFL playoffs, a playoff game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots. Rumor has it that during the halftime of this game, Tom Brady (Patriots Quarterback) had the managers deflate balls to give him an unfair advantage when throwing passes, due to the cold Boston weather. Although the Patriots would go on to beat the Colts, this scandal would end up to become national news, most similarly to the same way the final four incident did in Last Shot. As I stated in the last paragraph, cheaters always get caught in some way including Tom Brady. Brady would end up to be punished, the punishments which are stated in this article, were very severe. Many Colts fans were mad they were still handed a loss in the playoffs due to unfair play. Luckily, in Last Shot this was not the case as the plan to "match fix" the game would end up to not work. "Doctor Koheen, you are under arrest for attempted blackmail, for tampering with state records, and for conspiracy to kidnap two minors. (Feinstein 241)," similar to Tom Brady, cheating would end up to get the conspirators caught in the book as shown in the last quote, and cause them repercussions in the same way the article explained. Although I'm sure their are sport scandals that have not been busted yet, they will always have to live in the fear of knowing their is that chance of getting caught, which is a loss in it's self. Citizens think cheating is just the way to go in todays world, but little do they know their is always a loss in cheating.

Overall, I think Last Shot was a tremendous book that I would recommend to all sport enthusiasts.
I uncovered a lot of information in this book refreshing me on the basis of cheating, and why to never do it. One day, I hope that sports and all life events will be fair, but unfortunately this will most likely will never happen due to corrupt sport franchises and people in our world.


“'Deflategate:' 4-Game Suspension for Tom Brady.” CNN, Cable News Network, edition.cnn.com/2015/05/11/us/nfl-deflategate-response/index.html.  1 Mar. 2017.                     

Feinstein, John. Last Shot: Mystery at the Final Four. New York, Yearling Book, 2006.