I was asked to write about steroid abuse in sports a while back. Unfortunately, I don't know much about either. I've been around juice users because I've spent a lot of time in gyms (not anymore, I'm sorry to say). Even so, it wasn't something I wanted to take part in (fear of needles, perhaps). Not feeling qualified, I asked a young man I know to write something. He was a high school athlete with a promising college career who now spends time at home sitting on his parents sofa. He blew out his shoulder or arm or something, had the surgery, never really emotionally recovered, had never been encouraged to do well in school because his parents focused him on sports at the expense of academics and now is in his early 20s with no education and no sports career, just a couch. I asked him to write something because, the last time we spoke, he mentioned that he'd like to become a writer.
Okay, then write me something on steroid abuse in sports. You know a lot about sports. You might even know some college or high school athletes who use the stuff. Write down your thoughts. I'll post it and give you the credit.
That was a few weeks back. I haven't heard from him. I'm guessing he's still on his parents' couch.
So I looked around the Nextstage stable and asked if anybody felt like writing something on the subject. What follows is from Sweetness. It's her opinion.
The world is shocked to learn that steroid abuse occurs in sports. You can tell by this first sentence where my sympathies lie. By now we've all heard the allegations of the abuse whether we're sports fans or not. It's not surprising that this has happened. Millions of dollars hinge on whether the athletes get certain awards or break records. With so much riding on the outcome of games it's not surprising that some athletes will go to extremes to get that edge, to push their bodies beyond what they are naturally capable of.Science is having trouble keeping up with the enhancements that are being used in the sports world. It use to be that the only steroids available were the ones that stayed in the bodies system for years, making them easier to detect and much riskier to take. Now with the latest in technology the steroids are "natural" and are not easily detected.
It's a problem that occurs in any sport where there is a lot of money at stake. Baseball and Football are not the only sports where the athletes are accused of using enhancement performance drugs. The summer Olympics are coming up and a lot of money will become associated with a gold medal win. It's rare that the runner-up is better known than the winner of an event. You don't see the face of the silver medalist on the cereal boxes. The exception, and I know this isn't a sport so back off before you jump down my throat, is the "American Idol" show where many of the second place winners are better known than the winners.
But I digress. As sports become less of a team effort and more about how an individual is performing, the abuse will only increase. How many players jump ship the moment their team wins the "big one"? It seems that the players now see the World Series or Super Bowl wins only as bargaining chips in their next round of negotiations. The owners and managers should share some of the blame as well. Players come back on the field before injuries are healed in order to insure that they won't be let go, wins seem to be a justification to raise ticket prices so that families can rarely enjoy the games except from home. This isn't to say that talent shouldn't be rewarded, it should, but there is a point where "love of the game" should come back into play.
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There is a similar discussion for this topic (which may be better termed, 'cheating in sports') in a book published a few years back called 'Freakonomics'. The author(s) of that book described evidence of cheating that takes place in organized sumo wrestling (as opposed to the backyard stuff). The author(s) also described cheating by teachers on school tests to inflate their students' scores (teachers with higher performing students were rewarded).
The fact is that if achievement is rewarded, anyone who can reap the rewards will identify factors of achievement that are within their control and leverage those factors for personal gain. Sometimes that means working harder. Sometimes that means finding efficiencies to improve processes. Sometimes that means breaking laws or rules (if the perceived reward outweighs the perceived penalty or risk thereof). Shaving points, cheating on exams, insider trading, Watergate, performance enhancing drugs, plagiarism, and fraud are just a few of many examples of improper conduct that can be used to obtain rewards improperly.
The fascination with steroids in sports, and in particular Major League Baseball, is that we are receiving increasing amounts of evidence that a large portion of those who have received fame and fortune in the sport have cheated. The Mitchell Report (and is this really the best use we have as a country for an accomplished elder statesman) names 80 people involved, but only one real supply chain that influenced only a few teams primarily. Is it hard to believe there may be ten similar chains in baseball that could implicate 800 ballplayers? Are we ready to accept that we, as fans, have cheered for, rooted for, and provided the rewards for not a couple of bad apples, but teams of cheaters?
Unfortunately, I think most fans are ready. If the players on the teams we support tell us it was an accident, a moment of weakness, or that they were taking a vitamin injection in the posterior, we will (irrationally) give them the benefit of the doubt because we want to support our team. Fans will chant "Ster-Roids" to the players on the other teams that adopt the same mea culpas because they are the enemy. Aside from those who commit perjury, all will be forgiven and all the concern about performance enhancing drugs will become/continue to be background noise as we flick by C-span because, in the end, this type of behavior is insufficiently unusual to be considered newsworthy.
Don't believe me? Tune in this Sunday when the former Pro Bowler, 'Roid Ragin' Rodney Harrison and the New England Patriots do battle with the chemically enhanced Pro Bowler Shawne Merriman and the San Diego Chargers for the chance to play in the Super Bowl, during which none of the television talking heads will broach the steroid subject despite the fact both players were caught using over the past 18 months and suspended for a quarter of the season.
Posted by: Windkiller | January 16, 2008 1:03 PM | Permalink to Comment