Where Has Real Sports Players Gone?

In sports today there is a lot of controversy about performance enhancing drugs. Is it good or bad for the sport? When you do hear about it on the news or ESPN it is always on the negative side of the issue. The continuing debate is if they should legalize performance enhancing drugs/steroids. Everyone is involved when performance enhancing drugs come into play, coaches, players, owners, league officials and even the fans. All these people play a very big role in the sports world today. Legalizing performance enhancement drugs in sports will ruin the nature of the game being played. Performance-enhancing/Steroid drug use should be banned in sports because it can result in many physical, mental and behavioral damages, and it takes away the talent of the player and puts it into the performance enhancing drug. What kind of role model do we want for our kids to grow up with?

Performance enhancing drugs are most likely to cause physical, mental and behavioral damages. If the athlete is taking an anabolic steroid the following are the types of physical side affects of the steroid. It can cause in men, reduced sperm count, impotence, and development of breasts, shrinking of the testicles and difficulty or pain while urinating. In woman it can cause facial hair growth, deepened voice, breast reduction and menstrual cycle changes. In both men and woman it can cause, acne, bloated appearance, rapid weight gain, clotting disorders, liver damage, premature heart attacks and strokes, elevated cholesterol levels and weakened tendons. The anabolic steroids can cause the athlete to have mood severe mood swings, according to Dr. Gary Wadler of New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Wadler says "They can go

Where has Pg3

from bouts of depression or extreme irritability to feelings of invincibility and outright aggression, commonly called roid rage. This is a dangerous state beyond mere assertiveness." (Espn, 2005) Why take a chance on using these performance drugs with all the side affects that can happen? When playing the sport, the enhancement drugs do nothing for the athlete and the people around him. There is a slight chance that a particular athlete could benefit from the use of anabolic steroids. According to T.D. Fahey "Some researchers have speculated that the real effect of anabolic steroids is the creation of a "psychosomatic state" characterized by sensations of well being, euphoria, increased aggressiveness and tolerance to stress, allowing the athlete to train harder. Such a psychosomatic state would be more beneficial to experienced weight lifters who have developed the motor skills to exert maximal force during strength training."(T.D. Fahey 1998) But honestly, no one really benefits from using performance enhancing drugs, granted they might help you build up faster and stronger, but at what cost?

Performance enhancing drugs takes away the purity of the game being played. When athletes start using steroids or commonly known as being "juiced", it makes there accomplishments worthless, and there credibility is the same. An example of this is that Mark McGuire might not be inducted into the hall of fame for using performance enhancing drugs/steroids. Barry Bonds is in the hot seat because of his involvement of steroid use. David Deardurff columnist of TOTK.com said "Jose Canseco revealed on 60 Minutes that he was the "godfather" of steroids in baseball and that he alone single-handedly changed the game. He then proceeded to list off a large number of current and

Where has Pg4

ex-baseball players he claims he introduced to the "juice." Some of his more colorful stories included that he personally injected Mark McGuire in the buttocks and that George W. Bush, as owner of the Texas Rangers, knew about the increased use of steroids on the team."(Deardurff, 2005) So by using the "juice" it will ruin your reputation and it taints the sport being played, which can cause spectators not to come to the games and if they do not come then there will be no game to play. If there is no game to be played then what is the point? It is just not worth it to use performance enhancing drugs. With out sports being played for all fans watching it can change people, young and old on the way the live their lives.

When an athlete is in the spotlight, he has a certain obligation to his fans and part of it is being a good role model. When Mark McGuire hit the 63rd homerun every little boy wanted to be him. But what happens when they find out that their role model,