Steroid Use in American Society (Essay 3)

What was once simply just a way for bodybuilders to gain a competitive edge, steroids are now endangering the lives of millions of Americans. Over the last couple of decades, steroids have made their way from gym bags belonging to professional power lifters, to the locker rooms of local high school athletes. While steroids in professional sports used to be somewhat of a taboo, it is now hard to read through the sports section of a newspaper without finding an article on the newest discovered users. While most people tend to point fingers at these athletes, are they really the ones to blame for current steroid problems? Although blame is often put on professional athletes, our society as a whole is responsible for the popularity of steroids because it glorifies all-stars, pressures young athletes, and fails to effectively reprove known users.

When children are growing up, they often dream of what they are going to be when they get older. For many kids their dreams consist of becoming professional athletes. While these dreams used to consist of making that game winning touchdown pass or championship winning homerun, today’s kids often dream of the multi-million dollar pay checks and fancy mansions they see other athletes toting on television. These kids start to realize the kind of money and fame they can achieve, and begin to lose their love of the game. When they get into high school, they start to realize that if they want to become professional athletes themselves, they need to stand out from the rest of the kids. Those who want it the most will do anything it takes to achieve their money driven dreams, and that includes cheating their way to the top by using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.

The result is athletes coming out of high school and college who are able to run faster, jump higher, and hit harder thanks to the extra boost they get from these drugs. These elite (thanks to steroid use) athletes are the ones who will end up in commercials, and on the covers of magazines and cereal boxes. It’s easy to sit back and point the finger and criticize the athletes who use steroids, but when you really think about it, who can blame them? Our society chooses to idolize the athletes who score the most points and win the most games. The guys who we see in every other commercial aren’t there because they spent the most time giving back to their community or because of their sportsmanship; they’re there because they score the most touchdowns or win a lot of races. This can be seen in a 2006 article by Sports Illustrated in which it lists the 50 highest paid athletes. The top ten earners included names like Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James (Freedman). While none of these athletes are accused of steroid use, it does show that our society rewards the players who win or score the most points. These sorts of incentives are what drive athletes to cheating in hopes of becoming bigger and better than the rest.

Steroid use in professional sports is bad enough, but when kids in high school begin using performance enhancing drugs, the results can be deadly. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop our society from pushing kids to the point of steroid use. Teenaged athletes are the most effected by pressure, and they are often receiving pressure everywhere they go. It can come from parents, friends, coaches, teammates, and even professional scouts. When an athlete enters high school sports, there is a big jump from the recreational forms they played when they were younger. Not only are coaches more demanding, but there is now a whole audience depending on you to play well and do your best. Not to mention the pressure that comes from within themselves after seeing the popularity of older star athletes and the perks they receive in school and around the community.

With all of this pressure upon them, it’s not hard to imagine young kids turning to steroids. This is especially true when they realize professional athletes are using them and in most cases going unpunished for it as well. While most people make an uproar about steroids in sports, the truth is that not much is being done about fixing the problem. Major League Baseball did its own independent investigation into the alleged steroid use of its players. They even went as far as to hire former Senate majority leader George Mitchell to head the investigation in hopes of getting to the bottom of the situation. The investigation and its final report named 89 players who were found to have used steroids at some point in their careers. The report was made public in December 2007, and since then, not a single suspension has been handed out to anyone found guilty in the investigation (Blum). This coupled with the fact that the buzz created by the Mitchell Report lasted less than a week makes the lure of steroids that much more appealing.

So until we as a society make steroids the enemy that it should be, its impact will be felt throughout all levels of the sporting industry. It’s always easy to point the finger at those in the spotlight, but it’s important to remember that our society is what helped drive them to use these drugs. It is our nature to idolize those who lead their teams to victory, just as it is natural for young athletes to want to be like those stars. Unfortunately, until professional sports organizations do something to buckle down on steroid use, the reward will continue to outweigh the risk, and our society will continue to entice steroid use by athletes.


Sources

Blum, Ronald. "Suspensions increasingly unlikely for players mentioned in Mitchell Report." Associated Press. 12 March 2008. 5 April 2008 .

Freedman, Jonah. "Fortunate 50." Sports Illustrated. 2007. 5 April 2008 .