Essay Steroids in Sports Today

Every sports team seems to have that one person that has to be the best, and will go to the extreme to make themselves better. Especially the guys that are a little old and feel as if their training is not good enough to keep up with the youngsters. When I say “extreme” I am talking about steroids. Once the Russian weightlifters introduced this performance enhancing tool to the U.S, some players in almost all major sports, any age, any gender, and any race just cannot get enough of it. Watching ESPN, I see that there is no sign of Athletes slowing down even with a chance of having bad health conditions, being penalized by getting fined, and hurting the team by getting suspended for a certain amount of days; showing that taking steroids and

Many children all across the United States and other countries try to replicate their favorite superstar athlete. Many athletes become the children’s idol and once the child learns that the athlete has cheated the game the athlete plays the child no longer looks up to the athlete. It is almost gotten to the point where no athlete that excels in a particular sport can be trusted. Every time a single athlete becomes great at their respective sport, speculation of steroid abuse immediately follows.

The issue that our group is tackling is the use of illegal performance enhancing steroids in Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball is big business in the U.S., with 30 franchises valued at over 8.8 billion dollars. Player salaries range from the league minimum salary of three hundred twenty five thousand per year to ten million or more per year, and are based on the market value of each player when his current contract expires. It is in this hyper-competitive environment that a growing specter of foul play has erupted – the use of steroids. Anabolic steroids and other similar performance enhancing substances allow muscles to recover at a much faster rate than normal. This

When you were a kid, didn’t you want to play a professional sport? What would you give to be one of the best athletes in the world? Would you risk your reputation? Your health? Would you be willing to die? Although many studies have come out saying that steroids diminish one’s health, people still take them hoping to be the best. Imagine if you were a 28 year old who left college early because a pro team “guaranteed” you that you would play in the big leagues. Yet you just got stuck in the minors, and the only way you could get to the big’s was to take a pill that made you super-strong and super-fast. It would make sense to just take it. But what if that pill shrunk your testicles, hurt your heart and vascular system, and made

Former Notre Dame Football coach, Knute Rockne, once said, “Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure,” (“The Future of Steroids”). The importance of winning in sports and being the greatest has grown immensely. This unquenchable desire to be stronger, faster, and more agile than the opponent, has caused many athletes to stop at nothing to be the best; this pressure has caused athletes to take banned and illegal substances known as performance-enhancing drugs (Performance-enhancing drugs) to achieve maximum strength and speed. The use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in sports has been obvious to many spectators and sports enthusiasts for quite some time now, and athletes who have been found guilty of taking

Steroids are the single most abused performance-enhancing substance in the history of sports. As popular as the drug may be, the DEA listed anabolic steroids as a controlled substance under the Controlled Substance Act in 1990: meaning steroids can only be prescribed by a medical professional (Parks 12). Steroids are not only creating a poor image of professional sports, they also set a terrible example for the athletic, competitive youth of this generation. Children venerate their role models - like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds - and think the only way to be as successful as they are is to do as they do: use steroids. What the youth are too naïve to consider is that steroids do not improve agility, skill or cardiovascular capacity, and can prematurely stunt growth and destroy the liver of adolescents (ESPN). While the effects on the youth cannot be ignored, the everlasting effects on sports themselves leave a tarnished sense of distrust. Dr. Paul Finkelman stated, “Steroids undermine the integrity [of the game] by placing in doubt the skill of players, as fans assume that homers are hit because of steroids, not skill” (ProCon). The problem with making a stricter Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) testing policy is that if one substance becomes too recognizable, there will always be new, untested drugs which can cause more harm to one’s body than steroids ever would (Ropp). Random drug testing has proven successful in the past, but tests are very expensive and can sometimes be

Famed writer Grantland Rice once wrote, “When the great scorer comes to mark against your name. He'll mark not won or lost but how you played the game” (World of quotes, 1). That buoyant attitude of selflessness and heart has slowly diminished throughout the course of time. Now, George Allen’s booming voice, former coach of the Washington Redskins, runs throughout head of America, “Only winners are truly alive. Winning is living. Every time you win, you’re reborn. When you lose, you die a little” (Harris, 67). It is with this frame of mind that athletes are pushed beyond the edge of reason. Although peer pressure and pressure from coaches are central reasons why one may use steroids, most users begin using in order to improve their self image or excel in sports. Ethics, integrity, and legality aside, some athletes will stop at nothing to attain “that extra edge”.

The most commonly discussed issue in sports of the 21st century is the use of performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes. Over the past four years, it has been nearly impossible to turn on the television without hearing something about athletes and these drugs. From former National League MVP Third Baseman Ken Caminiti's admission of steroid use in an issue of Sports Illustrated (Verducci, 2004) to 2006 Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis being stripped of title due to a failed doping test (Blue, 2006) virtually every sport is involved. Are performance enhancing drugs a substance that threatens the very existence of professional sports, or are they the future? Perhaps the issue

The problem with today’s society is that steroids are everywhere and companies are finding ways around the steroid label by producing drugs that contain the same ingredients but are labeled differently. Professional athletes are also becoming big icons for people and many athletes are using steroids to enhance their performance. Athletes are supposed to be role models and by getting involved in these kinds of things people see it as an ok thing to do. Steroids are common everywhere, baseball and football players are constantly finding ways to take these drugs. Pro wrestling

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.

We all want to be the best. We want to be bigger, faster, and stronger. We want to excel at everything we attempt. It’s not easy, it takes a lot of work, drive, and motivation to become the best at what you do. We live in a world where the media highlights the most successful people in the world, many of these people being athletes. However, only a few athletes have the true desire to put in the work to achieve these traits. So, they turn to steroids. Steroids consumption has erupted since the late 1900’s and into the 2000’s. Today, the consumption of steroids with athletes is rising quicker than it ever has. Some of the most well know players in baseball were caught

Professional sports are a competition between the greatest athletes in the world. And when I go to a game, that’s exactly what I expect to see. Sports are entertainment. There is no room for purity and respecting the limits that athletes had in the past. Modern athletes should utilize all the resources that they have available to them. This includes steroids, which enhance an athlete’s performance. After all, performance is what really matters.

Unfortunately, it is not completely uncommon for athletes to test positive for steroids. Amazing, talented competitors like Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, and Lance Armstrong were all illegal users of steroids. They did as many things as they could to not get caught, but eventually they did. Imagine all of the die-hard fans that found out that their favorite athlete cheated through sports. Kids look up to athletes as role models and aspire to be like them one day, but the let down of discovering that an athlete wasn’t competing the way its body naturally could is devastating. Seeing all this success through the use of steroids could actually promote people to use it. This is an extremely bad idea because anabolic steroids ultimately lead to a path of physical and mental hopelessness. Anabolic steroids can be extremely harmful. If the body is already producing a proper amount of testosterone, there is no reason to be adding more. It is unhealthy for the body and results in abnormal effects. Acne, liver disorders, blood pressure increase, possible HIV, sexual diseases, atrophy, infertility, prostate enlargement, lower speaking voice, thinner hair, aggressive behavior, depression, and lower hormonal levels are just a few of the side effects as a result of taking steroids. None of these are positive, so why should athletes be using them if they have

After doing research on the use of steroids and their effects I have came to the conclusion that steroids is only bad thing if it is abused. Just like any other drug. A lot of people don't know what to do with the good things in life. While all the negative effects of steroids are told to us we are ignoring how steroids can actually help us. Especially in Athletes. Many people believe that athletes that “juice” are cheating. In reality they are not cheating because they are doing just what they think will help them improve and make them the best at what they love to do. There is always room for im-provement and creating all those negative side effects such as irritable and dangerous behavior is right and okay for athletes to

When athletes get into college year, most of them start facing challenges in their life that they can’t overcome. That’s when they start thinking of other alternatives like steroids for their problem because everyone wants to get drafted by a professional team from the sport that they feel passionate about. With out knowing the risks that follow after that decision that they made and all the people they will harm emotionally.