I haven’t forgiven Michael Vick and Lambert doesn’t deserve his kind of cell time, but nor does she rate “savior of women’s sports from gentility.”

Instead she has made it quite clear that I may while on a walk get mugged by a woman. Great.

I marvel at the disconnect this author has from what is the real subject matter of the Lambert case. It is not a case of an excuse plagued broken person. It IS a case of an elite athlete, who made the wrong on field decision when facing gamesmanship presented by an opponent. At the elite level, all athletes have long ago cycled through all of the on-field “sportsman-like” methods of attaining a competitive advantage. They have refined their training, polished their skills (the activity’s technical aspects) and studied their strategies (the activity’s tactical aspects).

This athlete’s issues are not with excuses, they are with the correct response to an opponent’s gamesmanship. As a closer review of the video evidence will show, this athlete responded to minor provocations with escalation. By doing so, she forfeited most of what she had prepared for in her training. When an athlete “sees red”, the activity shifts from discipline to aggression, from creative to destructive.

The only additional information provided by this athlete’s interview in the NY Times that is relevant is: “In each of her two previous matches, Lambert had received a yellow-card warning, but those were the only cautions in more than 2,500 minutes of play at New Mexico”. Yellow cards for a defender, especially in tournament play, are not unusual (where tactical fouls to stop the run of play are often appropriate). What is relevant is that the video in evidence came from the third game in a row where the athlete was cautioned. Clearly, this athlete has deviated from the pattern of discipline that got her to this point in her career.

Again, and if this is getting redundant – oh well: all that is relevant is what has changed in the last 3 matches to explain the first 3 cautions of her collegiate career? Why has she chosen to escalate when faced with gamesmanship, when she hadn’t before?

The histrionics of “soccer-moms”, those parents of children who participate in recreational sports, fail to recognize that their children are playing an entirely different game. Their children are not simply at the other end of long spectrum, but are participating in a qualitatively different activity. It is like trying to compare taking a walk on a path to climbing in the himalayas.