Commitment to service, loyalty to science, and passion for public health were the hallmarks of Dr. C. Everett Koop’s career. His death in February, 2013 at the age of 96 is a reminder that one determined person with the courage to look past ideology and on to the greater good can make an enormous difference.

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www.livescience.com/38653-cheating-degrading-sports.html

First, there was Barry Bonds. Then, there was Lance Armstrong. Now, there's Alex Rodriguez, Major League Baseball (MLB)'s highest-paid player. All three are cheaters — extraordinarily well-paid, and quite famous, cheaters.

Nearly every columnist who's ever written about drugs in professional sports tells roughly the same story over and over — a pro cheats, gets caught and then faces discipline. Rodriguez, for instance, is likely to be suspended, perhaps for the rest of the season. But he'll be back, and he still draws MLB's biggest salary.

There's a good reason that Lance Armstrong cheated. He won seven Tour de France titles, because blood doping is the difference between really, really good and world class. Bonds hit more home runs than anyone in baseball history. That's why he cheated. Rodriguez is famous and he has that enormous MLB paycheck. That's why he cheated.

That's the risk and reward calculation professional athletes go through — cheat and become world class, or stay clean and fight for the top of the podium like everyone else. When Armstrong finally admitted to blood doping, he actually said just that — he had to cheat to be competitive at the top of the sport. There's some truth there.

But there's another side to this story that almost never gets told. In long-distance running or cycling, there are athletes who chose not to blood dope to get an extra 5 percent or 10 percent boost in performance at the elite level. What have they felt for years as their governing bodies chose not to level the playing field? Cheated.

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