Wow, stupid rowing analogy.
Sure, that's what its like in an intense combat situation - you do what the squad leader says, immediately. You do not think about it, you do no question him. It is NOT THE TIME. He may be telling you the truth. He may be saying whatever he needs to to get you into a position or situation that would save your life or the lives of your squad. The truth isn't what you care about, though - you trust him to the best he can at what he does, so you do what he says without question, because you know his goals and your goals coincide. Thats the proper analogy for your rowing situation - actual combat time. When doubt actually impedes success because it takes time, and the outcome balances on a thread, and there's no room for it.
Outside of combat, that doesn't hold. If you find that your goals and your commanders goals don't coincide, you try to figure out why.
Say your boat was going, your rowers believe you ever second and try their hearts out, do whatever you say, but then the race ends... and they find that not only have they lost the race, they're a laughingstock because of the things you made them do. Maybe you told them to stop paddling - at which point, YOU are the ones who created problems, because you've quickly planted a seed of doubt that your goals and the goals of your subordinates are not aligned. Maybe you told them to give up. Maybe you told them the other team was definitely going to win, while YOU were winning. The reason doesn't even matter.
You've lost their trust.
Being a good athlete, like being a good soldier, means knowing when to follow orders without question - when the chips are down, when believing whatever bullshit comes out of the boss's mouth can save your life.
But when that moment ends, if you reflect and find that the person in charge was acting against the best interests of the team, and your disgust with everything he's done to you over the course of the season makes you so sickened with the sport that you can never play again - not just that he lied to you, but that he was acting completely contrary to your best interests and the best interests of the team. Perhaps it IS a deception problem at its core - maybe he was drugging team members without their knowledge. The details don't matter, just your response - What would you do? Would you continue rowing for him? Would you leave silently, knowing he has a great PR guy and can easily find many more rowers, knowing he would kill their hopes and dreams as well? Or would you try to warn people about what is really going on? OR would you completely ignore it, continuing on and following orders as if you've never seen any evidence to the contrary?
Manning didn't believe the military lied to him, from what I've read and heard. He believed they betrayed him. And some times a person's dedication to the sport needs to trump their dedication to their team leadership, even if it means they hurt their team in the process.