Whatever the reasons, the desire to win in athletics is great. That goes for recreational, high school, college, and professional sports.

The news is filled with stories about performance-enhancing drugs, cheating, gambling, violence, and rules violations of every sort: eligibility, academic, residency, recruitment, practice time, off-season contact, and many other requirements.

Remember the Michigan basketball scandal? I don't recall how many games or titles were vacated because of that. Even at the high school level, rules violations result in the forfeiture of games [[or sometimes entire seasons) all the time.

As the mom of a high school and college distance runner, and the wife of a sports official, I can tell you that MHSAA and NCAA rules are in place for a reason.