Performance Enhancing Drugs: A Threat to an Athlete s Way of Life

Transcription

1 Lauren Simpson Period Twelve 12 February 2011 Ms. Shaw Pro/Con Research Performance Enhancing Drugs: A Threat to an Athlete s Way of Life Meet Taylor Hooton: a junior, ace pitcher for the baseball team at Plano West Senior High School. Taylor had an outstanding junior baseball season, even throwing a perfect game for his varsity team. Everyone was looking forward to seeing him shine during his senior year. But in the off season, a tremendously unfortunate event took place. Taylor had committed suicide by hanging himself. Taylor s death was believed to be caused from depression that he encountered after discontinuing the use of steroids (Longman 1). Sadly, he is not alone. Although steroid users and supporters believe that steroid use can increase athletic performance levels, one s career could be over in an instant from the countless risks and results from the use of performance enhancing drugs. As a result, steroid use needs to be prohibited at every sports level, from high school sports to the major leagues, because performance enhancing drugs pose a major health risk to those who use them, taking steroids is unfair to the athletes that stay clean and believe in the value of hard work, and it sets a terrible example for today s youth. Since steroids are extremely harmful to the human body, they pose a health risk to anyone who takes them. As Kenneth Jost states in his work, Anti-doping officials insist that performance enhancing drugs hurt not only the image of competitive sports but the athletes as well (3). Performance enhancing drugs have a wide range of side effects, including some that

2 Simpson 2 are even life threatening. Steroid use has endless physical side effects starting with high blood pressure, heart disease, liver damage and cancer, and kidney problems. When adolescents use performance enhancing drugs, it can cause their growth to be stunted ( Update: Performance- Enhancing Substances 3). There are also gender specific side effects to take into consideration. Men may experience increased breast size and baldness, while women could encounter deeper voices and grow body hair in unwanted places (Chittom 4). Even more concerning, death can even occur directly from steroid use. Steve Bechler was a Major League baseball pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles when he died from heat stroke in February Bechler was taking the steroid or dietary supplement called Ephedra at the time (Wadler 4). This was a man who was exactly where he wanted to be in life. He had the dream job of being a Major League Baseball player but ruined it with the use of performance enhancing drugs. In the world that we live in today, we are lucky enough to have those that can inform us about the dangers of steroid use. Mr. Jim Ryun is a three-time Olympian and former professional athlete who has experienced first hand what steroids can do to athletes. Jim Ryun stated in his speech to Congress, Athletes are trading a few years of marginal performance enhancement for a potential life time of negative health effects (2). In addition, steroid use has its physiological effects on the human body. Steroids can cause altered moods and severe aggression, also known as roid rage ( Update: Performance-Enhancing Substances 3). Some steroids can even directly affect actions of the brain such as the ability to learn and one s memory (Wadler 6). Adolescents are especially susceptible to these physiological dangers; when they stop taking the supplements or drugs that they are using, hopelessness and loss of confidence is common (Longman 1). Tragically, suicide attempts after withdrawing from steroid use occur for this reason. As quoted by Dr. Harrison

3 Simpson 3 Pope, a steroid researcher and psychiatrist from Harvard University, Suicide attempts related to steroid use are more common than most people suspect (qtd. in Longman 3). To finalize why performance enhancing drugs are a huge health risk, Dr. Marc Safran, the director or sports medicine at The University of California, states, Why don t you legalize all these drugs? The winner would be the person who comes out risking their life (qtd. in Jost 4). For these reasons and more, performance enhancing drugs should be prohibited in all sports leagues because they pose a major health risk to those who possess them. Furthermore, steroids should not be allowed because they pose an unfair advantage to the athletes that compete cleanly and believe in the value of hard work. Steroid use questions all the records that have been broken since steroid use has become a common occurrence ( Update: Performance-Enhancing Substances 6). In 2007, Barry Bonds, a Major League Baseball player, broke the all-time record for number of career homeruns. This was a huge accomplishment that would take years of hard work and dedication for anyone to achieve. But in reality, Bonds cheated when breaking this record because the year before, in 2006, he tested positive for amphetamines. This record was previously held by Hank Aaron, who did not use performance enhancing drugs (9). Now when people bring up the name of the record holder for most career homeruns, they are bringing up the name of a cheater instead of one who did it the honest way. This is completely unfair to Mr. Aaron who actually spent years of hard work and dedication to see his record be broken by a cheater. Another similar case occurred as Mark McGuire, another Major League Baseball player, approached Roger Maris s record for most homeruns in a season at the beginning of the 21 st century. McGuire ended up breaking this record, replacing Maris s which had been set in As sports reporters came in and out of the dugout to interview

4 Simpson 4 McGuire on this tremendous accomplishment, they found dietary supplements in McGuire s locker (Jost 3). Again, Maris s record that he worked exceptionally hard for was shattered by a cheater. Jim Ryun states, When others cheat, it robs those who compete fairly of reaping the benefits of their hard work (2). This is absolutely true since Aaron and Maris, both all-time greats, are being replaced with two cheaters in Bonds and McGuire. Nonetheless, the use of steroids during sports is a violation of good sportsmanship. Steroid use provides an unfair advantage to athletes and creates unrealistic success (Chittom 1). Out of the 34 Major League Baseball players who have been voted most valuable player since 1988, thirteen of them, or forty percent, have used steroids ( Update: Performance-Enhancing Substances 6). According to the Mitchell Report, an investigation done by United States Senator George J. Mitchell, five to seven percent of Major League Baseball players tested positive in 2003 for performance enhancing drug use. Of these 89 players, 31 were voted to be all-stars and seven won some type of most valuable player award (Chittom 7). Based off of these last two studies, it is obvious that steroid use provides an unfair advantage to the athletes that actually work hard to stay clean. Steroid use is a method to bypass the blood, sweat, and tears of training and is really nothing less than cheating to achieve unnatural results (Ryun 2). Mr. George Mitchell, the conductor of The Mitchell Report, states, If you play football, you never say We ll let this team have eleven players and you get eight. That s cheating. If you start cranking up on steroids, that s cheating (qtd. in Longman 5). Both of these quotes portray the same message: using steroids to achieve one s goals is cheating! Unfortunately, No longer do we [enforce] the values of competition, teamwork, dedication, and cooperation (Schwab 1). In an attempt to bring the value of hard

5 Simpson 5 work and these other values back and to make sports fair again, performance enhancing drugs need to be prohibited in all sports leagues. Lastly, steroids should be banned in all sports leagues because steroid use sets a horrible example for today s youth. For many male high school athletes, professional athletes are major influences. They are the role models and they [teenagers] are influenced by their drug use (Schwab 2). Young people today follow the examples of their heroes or role models, and professional sports figures today are setting the pace for high school and college athletes. The message that it is alright to use steroids is being spread (Chittom 3). Young athletes often believe that steroid use by their role models gives them permission to use them (Schwab 2). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than six percent of teenagers nationwide have taken steroids ( Update: Performance-Enhancing Substances 2). Some doctors estimate that five hundred thousand to one million high school students use steroids (Longman 1). More importantly, doctors have seen a sixty percent increase in steroid use among high school athletes (Schwab 1). All of these teenagers that are taking steroids or have taken steroids have most likely looked up to someone who has also possessed them. Children follow from example, so when professional athletes take performance enhancing drugs, children think that it is fine to take them, too. Obviously, young athletes are influenced by their professional role models who use steroids (Longman 1)! Moreover, Wadler states, It s clearly something that has infiltrated its way down to grade school and up (qtd. in Jost 4). In a 2003 survey, 2.5% of eighth graders admitted to using steroids at one point in their life (Wadler 5). These students were just doing what they thought was right, since their role models took steroids and ended up playing professional sports. The truth is these professionals will eventually get caught and end up with health problems from

6 Simpson 6 steroid use later in life. As George W. Bush quoted in his State of the Union Address, Steroids are bad for sports, they re bad for players, they re bad for young people who hold athletes up as role models (qtd. in Update: Performance-Enhancing Substances 2). Finally, as role models, professional athletes should consider what their actions mean to others and how they are failing to uphold the values of honesty and hard work that children are supposed to learn (Chittom 4). To back this fantastic point up, Jim Ryun stated in his speech to Congress: Professional athletes are natural role models for our young people, and it is time that they begin taking this responsibility seriously. Today s athletes are sending the wrong message to their young fans, a dangerous message that stands not only to have a negative impact on their future athletic lives, bur in the rest of their lives as a whole. (1) As a result, steroids should be prohibited in all sports leagues because they set a poor example for today s youth. If Taylor Hooton was still with us today, undoubtedly he would tell us that he would think twice about his decision to use performance enhancing drugs. Sadly, there was no second chance for Taylor because of the grueling effects that steroids have. Steroid use needs to be prohibited in every aspect of sports because they pose a major health risk to those who take them, steroid use is unfair to the athletes that stay clean and believe in the value of hard work, and it sets a terrible example for today s youth. If steroids are not banned in sports, more people will end up like Taylor. No one wants to see the one they love die from something he or she could have controlled themselves. Clearly, performance enhancing drugs need to be prohibited at all levels of sports in order to protect our athletes of tomorrow.

7 Simpson 7 Works Cited Chittom, Lynn-nore, and Ann Griswold. Counterpoint: Performance Enhancing Drugs Should be Banned Great Neck Publishing. Points of View Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 8 Feb < Jost, Kenneth. Performance-Enhancing Drugs: An Overview. Performance Enhancing Drugs. Ed. Louise Gerdes. At Issue Series. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 7 Feb < Longman, Jere. An Athlete s Dangerous Experiment. New York Times. 26 Nov. 2003:D1. SIRS Issues Researcher. ProQuest LLC. Web. 8 Feb < Ryun, Jim. Steroid Use in Sports. Speech. FDCH Congressional Testimony. 10 Mar Points of View Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 9 Feb < Schwab, Greg. Use of Performance-Enhancing Drugs Is A Problem Among Teens. Performance Enhancing Drugs. Ed. Louise Gerdes. At Issue Series. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Gale. Web. 7 Feb < Update: Performance-Enhancing Substances. Issues and Controversies on File. 22 June Issues and Controversies. Facts on File News Service. Web. 7 Feb < Wadler, Gary I. Doping in Sports: Steroids and Supplements. The World Almanac and Book of Facts Jan elibrary. ProQuest LLC. Web. 7 Feb <