Drugs: Hurt Players and Sports
Brett Favre, Diego Maradona, and Darryl Strawberry are all big name sport stars. They all play different sports, but all have the same problem: they tested positive for using illegal drugs. Cocaine, anabolic steroids, and painkillers are just a sample of drugs found in sports. Cocaine is described this way, “It makes you feel like you can do anything, and for athletes who long to be in control all the time, that's a strong temptation” (Coffey 1).
Anabolic-androgenic steroids are synthetic forms of hormones that produce muscle faster (Rozin 176). Over fifty percent of the players in the National
Football League are weekend or recreational users of cocaine (Burwell 1) .
Forty-four Olympians
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S. soccer team member Claudia Reyna
(Longman 1). Drugs hurt Maradona's health and reputation and prevented him from becoming a World Cup champion. Maradona wanted to leave the World Cup stage a champion. Instead he left as its most pathetic figure (Sports Illustrated 10).
As a final example, National League rookie of the year for 1983 and 1986 world series champ, Darryl Strawberry had a great future going for him, but not anymore. Strawberry checked himself into the Betty Ford Center for cocaine abuse (Verducci 16). Five months later he tested positive for cocaine. After this, Strawberry had no team to call his own, as he was suspended from baseball
(Verducci 17). Strawberry entered his third rehabilitation center in five years (Verducci 18). Drugs kept Strawberry away from his family. Ruby, his mother, said, “He didn't care what was going on with the family. He was not in touch with us” ( qtd. in Verducci 20 ). Cocaine can take a person away from a lot of things, but taking away from a family has to be the worst. Strawberry has had three wives, and five children by those three. Ruby said about the second, “His marriage was a bad one from the beginning”( qtd. inVerducci 22).
Cocaine took many valued things away from Strawberry: his wives, children, family, baseball, and, of course, money. Strawberry has since come clean and was a member of the New York
The four major sport leagues in the United States consist of the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), and the National Hockey League (NHL). All of the leagues have some similarities in their implemented drug policies, such as the need for testing athletes. Although the policies have similarities, there are many differences within the leagues, as well. Drug testing in professional sports has increased, due to the rise of players using illegal substances and Major League Baseball currently has the best drug-testing program. Drug-testing programs have become very complex and have many unique legal aspects that these leagues must face.
Cocaine, a narcotic drug that took the entire world by storm in the 1980’s, has continued to find it’s way into countries all over the world. The drug is a highly addictive stimulant that is extracted from the leaves of the Erythroxylon coca bush, which is indigenous to the Andean highlands of South America. It comes in two main forms, powder and crystalline, also known as “crack” (“Cocaine Use and Its Effects”). Although the short term effects of cocaine seem somewhat harmless, the long term effects are devastating and have ruined the lives of many users. The short and long term effects of cocaine can be seen on Ishmael Beah, and his companions in the novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah.
Sports are something that everyone in the world, regardless of age, sex, or nationality, can enjoy. Whether it's a child playing in his first t-ball game or a professional athlete swimming in the Olympics and everyone in between, sports can connect almost everyone. Fan support and overall devotion for athletic competition has raised professional athletes to superstars and national icons; Super Bowl Sunday is a national holiday to some, and sports are one of the largest moneymakers in the economy.
It's nothing new for the National Football League's players to be abusing anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Drug abuse in the league has recently focused around recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol. The newest drug being abused is painkillers. The commissioner and his personal need to change their policies. Will they wait until many more players start to die before they tighten up their drug policies? The National Football League (NFL) can stop most of these drug problems by having more random drug tests given, enforcing stricter punishments when players are caught using drugs, and requiring every team to educate its players annually on the effects and consequences
Ever since the recreational use of weed was legalized in the states of Colorado and Washington I’ve wondered how it might affect athletes and sports in those areas. Would athletes be able to smoke as much as they want whenever they cross the states borders? Imagine a United States where the use of marijuana is legal in all 50 states. Athletes whether in college or playing professionally get a ton of publicity for everything they do and are idols to youth across the world. They’re essentially trendsetters. Would seeing Kobe Bryant smoke a joint on television change the general attitude towards marijuana and inspire basketball players across the world to follow? Many think weed would destroy the integrity of sports and would prevent the best
The topic that I have chosen is student athletes' use of drugs and alcohol. I'm interested to see if the old theory that student athletes tend to stay away from these things still holds true today. From my own personal experience as a former high school and college football player, I doubt that this is true. I'd also like to find some studies that may compare student athletes to the general student body to see if there is a correlation of usage between these two groups. With the many stories of athletes being arrested for alcohol and drug abuse, I feel this information may be helpful in setting up a drug prevention program at the high school or middle school level.
In recent history American culture has become more and more dominated by sports. Out of all of these sports baseball is considered to be America's pastime. Over the last couple years America's pastime has come under scrutiny about some of its players using anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said, ¡§... hopefully we can figure out ways to solve this problem. It needs to be solved. There is no one I¡¦ve talked to who can say it is not a problem. Now the question is, What can we do about it?¡¨ (41). The commissioner is absolutely correct in saying that the steroids issue is a problem. Without a doubt the steroid issue is bringing
What do you think about athletes and drug tests? Well I believe that every athlete should be required to take a drug test, first off I'm going to tell you what exactly is drug testing and what the point of it is. Why people use them and some cons of them and the health risks drugs cause. Also what happens if you get caught using drugs in sports
The topic for my stakeholder research paper is performance enhancing drugs. My research is the affects of performance enhancing drugs on athletes and how it affects society. The stakeholders for the research paper are the professional athlete, the college athlete, governing bodies and the fan. The effects of drug use on the professional athlete can cost them their career and also their lives. The college athlete wants to become the fastest or the biggest and nevertheless don’t view performance enhancing drugs as dangerous. Sports governing bodies in the United States have taken action towards controlling the use of performance enhancing drugs. However there is the fan that will still idolize the top athletes even though they use
If Rob Garibaldi had one wish it would be to play major league baseball. Growing up he played baseball throughout high school and college. There was one problem. He wasn’t as big as the other players. Beginning in his junior year of high school he was strongly influenced to take supplements to increase his strength. A few years later, after continued use of steroids, his life started to spiral out of control. He was feeling very depressed, struggling academically, and had become very aggressive. That bright, young man with aspirations to play major league baseball ended up taking his own life with a fatal gunshot on October 1, 2002. Ultimately, Rob Garibaldi killed himself but steroids could easily be deemed his accomplice.
This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.
Drugs should be banned in all sports. They have been a problem for a long time. Athletes use them to enhance their body and for simply just the edge. There is nothing wrong with using some drugs to enhance your body as long as they are legal. The problems that come with drugs in sports are how to detect them. Some professional sports, such as the NHL, do not even use drug tests. The only sports that test for everything are the NBA and NFL. The Major League Baseball only tests for illegal drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. They do not test for steroids or any other kind of pill. The reason for this is because the player’s union will not allow these tests. They are currently voting to reconsider this idea. The other problem is that drug
Many people believe that drug use in professional athletics is not a serious problem, however it is more widespread and serious than people think. In professional athletics the use of drugs is looked upon as somewhat of a serious problem, but is also very discrete and low key. Every once in a while one might see a prominent figure in a certain sport being reprimanded for the use of some outlawed drug, however this is just one of the many who happened to get caught. Athletes today seem to find no moral problem with using performance-enhancing drugs, or in other words cheating. Also many of them feel that because they are "stars" there should be no repercussions for their illegal activity.
More and more, of our society views winning more important than itself. Success in competition brings status, popularity, and fame, not to mention college scholarships. Today’s athletes are looking for an advantage over the competition that will make them winners. Unfortunately, the drugs of today are caught up in the high stakes competition frenzy. Of this reality, teenage use of performance improved drugs is growing ever more popular. In colleges and in the professional league a lot of people are doing drugs and its ruining their health and life. Also, if some teenagers take performance drugs they are making them better than everyone else giving themselves an advantage over everyone else which is cheating, so why should they get money
pain in life, or a way to deal with stress. People who use illegal drugs for their own benefit,