Rehabilitation in Sport - Ben Cousins return

Controversial AFL player Ben Cousins continues his comeback campaign to the national game following the AFL ruling. Despite stringent drug testing imposed on Cousins requiring up to 3 drug tests a week, he is keen to be drafted into a club for the 2009 season. There are many points of view on whether Cousins should play or not, and under what conditions, and it begs the question, how do we allow someone to move forward from their past mistakes?
Dale Carnegie, renowned for his business and leadership training, has said "give people a grand reputation to live up to." The point being, that what we expect to see is what we get. If we expect someone or something to go wrong, we will look for all the evidence that supports this belief, and overlook all the times that it goes right. We are all 'creators' or our reality and if there is a collective belief that Ben Cousins is going to 'stuff up' again, then we might all be proven right.
To get ahead in anything you want to get up more times than you fall down. As long as you keep striving, and that each time you fall you get up again, then you will succeed. Cousins has fallen hard more than once, but let's not push him down. When a toddler starts to walk and they fall down two, three, four times....are you going to give up on him/her ever walking? Of course not.
Perhaps if we give him, and others returning from rehabilitation of any sort, the support and belief that people can change, then Ben Cousins is more likely to return to his sporting glory. I hope he does.