Sprinter Kelli White admits she used performance enhancing drugs and, despite a lack of "drug test" evidence, has accepted punishment. She won't run in 2004.

For this she's being condemned from here to Sydney and back. (In fact, the picture is from the Sydney Morning Herald.)

I can feel her pain.

My son plays soccer. It's a recreation league. He's no David Beckham, but his team had talent. Last fall they played in a tournament and were done by a team which, our coach charged, was an "all-star team" filled with "ringers."

This spring we were loaded. Then coach learned that four of his best players would be going on a school trip the week of the district tournament. They would be able to play, however, if we won that competition and made it to state.

So I took my son to his first tournament game, expecting defeat. And what did I see on the field but a tall, thin, wiz of a player, whom coach was calling by the name of one of our absent boys. He blew by the opposition, scoring once and setting up two more. The rest of our kids played inspired defense behind him. Even my son did fairly well.

What I should have done was taken my son, gone off to find the tournament director, and turned in the team right then. I was too shocked to do that. I didn't know where the tournament director was. I told myself lies -- maybe he's still 14, from another rec team, it's someone else's job.

In the end better angels triumphed, the team was thrown out of the tournament, and everyone involved now feels sick at heart.

The point is I remember the pressure to conform, to keep my mouth shut, to stay in the conspiracy. It was a very small conspiracy, with very small stakes. But the pressure was no less real for that.

They say, "act like a grown-up," but what I learned is that, in the end, most grown-up morality doesn't go much further than that of a 12-year old boy. When my son came home from the tournament, with his mother, he went straight to his room, looking for all the world like a loser. I was proud of him then.

I no longer belittle or dismiss Kelli White, or the difficulty of the decision she made.

The right thing is often the hardest thing you'll ever do.

But do it anyway.