‘The Sad Part is When the Truth is Not Enough’

Butch Reynolds

It’s a highly-problematic conflict when the facts you clearly present or are attempting to bring forth are ignored or dismissed.

Imagine 34 years of effort and rejection to feel heard, understood and trusted about what is truthful and ethically and morally “right.”

Butch Reynolds has traveled that lonely road yet has not quit. He’s on a mission.

Reynolds worked diligently to “restore his reputation from doping allegations, which subsequent investigations revealed were the likely result of lab failings,” writes Nicole Kraft, an associate professor of journalism practice and the director of the Sports and Society Initiative at the Ohio State University.

Let’s quickly go back a ways: Reynolds “was among the fastest men in the world by virtue of a 43.29 400-meter effort, shattering a 20-year-old record. He followed up by winning gold in the 4 x 400 relay at the Seoul Olympics, stamping him as an American track star.

“Despite his speed, Reynolds could not outrun allegations two years later of a positive drug test grinding his career to a halt, and leaving his dreams and reputation in the dust,” Kraft reports.

Butch Reynolds

Some good news has developed “with the release of ‘False Positive,’ an ESPN ‘30 for 30’ documentary that lays out Reynolds’ story from his earliest track glory, to his career derailment and beyond, as he refuses to let the mistakes of others define him,” Kraft writes.

Reynolds talks about what it means to have his story front and center again, this time attention being paid to the factual narrative.

“It was my time when I told this story 34 years ago to get full exoneration,” Reynolds said. “Now I’m on God's time. He said, ‘It's time now for us to be heard. It's time for your story to be appreciated, and it's time for you to be fully exonerated.’”

Don’t believe in his statement about God? That’s ok. What still matters is that Reynolds is getting a new opportunity at being heard, believed and supported.

He’s had to to live with a tremendous amount of trauma, pain and misery, wrongfully so.

"I'm just trying to tell the truth,” Reynolds said. “The sad part is when the truth is not enough. We talk about equality, or we talk about due process of the law. It is not always fair, true enough, but you have to keep trying.”

This is a complicated story in some respects.

“The film does not dispute that there was indeed a positive, but it presents extensive evidence that test did not belong to the American runner,” Kraft writes. “False Positive” outlines investigations that revealed numerous issues, most damagingly a technician error that seems to have assigned another athlete’s test results to Reynolds.”

Let’s examine what Reynolds said about “the truth.”

You can try and try and try to communicate, with a lack of bias, the objective facts of any matter and it may surreally be distrusted. Reynolds is correct, as he and others have had to traumatically learn: The truth may not be enough.

Why?

Because certain observers, critics, the court of public opinion and people in authority and power emotionally prefer lazy thinking, little-to-no compulsion to dig deeper and be objective.

They instead succumb to emotional reasoning and confirmation bias or show an arrogant, under-the-influence of egotistical behavior.

This goes for what happens outside of courts as well as “due process of law.”

Reynolds has had to wrongfully endure being disbelieved, dismissed and long punished. As he said earlier in this article, “It is not always fair, true ‘enough, but you have to keep trying.”

You may have to battle long after people will be willing to pay attention to you.

Reynolds has endured, survived and continued the suffering journey that is often given up on by those who have been long victimized by the people who are not willing to re-examine their conclusions that are flawed or upon further, detailed inspection, completely false.

The reason the corrupted, damaging, destructive narrative survives or thrives is because the people who created it honestly lack the necessary character, strength and courage to commit to learning, discovering truth and doing “right.”

There is also the reality that them doing so is an admittance of error on their behalf, which is not seen as tolerable.

It is, for them, a thunderous blow to their ego to which many people don’t want to subject themselves.

You can fight the good fight with resilience and perseverance and seek skilled, trustworthy professional assistance so you have a teammate or a team to overcome the illogical, hardened resistance to factual truth and your objectives.

Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence: Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically and responsibly protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.

Contact Michael for reputation services: 316-226-4071 or by using the form below.