Why Do College Athletes Use Steroids?

In every sport, there has always been a desire to win. Some athletes will do anything to make winning possible. Every elite athlete wants to be better than their opponent. Some rely on performance enhancing drugs, also known as PED’s, to improve their game. This topic is very important because it can be the difference between winning and losing. Winning can mean money, fame and a place in history. I believe athletes should not use PED’s in sports because it is an unfair advantage, health risk, bad role modeling, bad sportsmanship, and results in tainted records and awards.

Athletes use performance enhancing drugs to boost their game. The professionals who use these drugs are ruining the integrity of the game. Many people don’t understand why professional athletes would go to such extreme measures to be better when they have already proven themselves. Athletes are just taking away from their natural ability by using these dangerous drugs. The risk of using performance enhancing drugs is a lot greater than the reward, because an athlete’s reputation could be tarnished and their career ruined. Money is one of the major reasons why players use them; if they perform at levels higher than what their natural abilities could do they will be offered a large sum of money.

“Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, all of these baseball players have admitted to the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs)” (“Performance Enhancing Drugs”). “Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’s 37 year old record of 61 home runs. McGwire hit a total of 70 home runs in 1998. Sammy Sosa also broke Maris’s record with 66 homeruns.” In “2001 Barry Bonds broke Mark McGwire’s home run record by hitting 73”. “In 2009 Sosa, Bonds, and McGwire all admitted to using PEDs during their careers” (“Sports Tarninshed”). Many professional baseball players have admitted to the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs through out their career. Performance Enhancing Drugs have given these players an unfair advantage

As he waited in the waiting room to hear his test results, he thought about all those times he abused his body just to be captain of his college football team. Due to taking anabolic steroids, he now may have kidney failure just because he wanted to impress everyone. Anabolic steroids should not be used by athletes because they affect the brain, have long and short term effects, and they are addictive.

Steroids and PED’s are used today in sports to help athletes gain muscle mass and strength. Other athletes use them to boost their athletic performance. Today, about 30 percent of college and professional athletes still use anabolic steroids, 10 to 20 percent of high school athletes use them (Lewis). There are many reasons why steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs shouldn’t be allowed in sports.

According to Dr. Charles E. Yesalis, a professor health and human development at Penn St. University, "drug use among athletes has gone dramatically up in recent years. Athletes also are becoming more venturesome about mixing different types of drugs. One reason is that new drugs keep coming on the market, and some turn out to be of help in giving athletes a competitive edge. Sports officials feel they have no choice but to try to combat drug use in sports with every legitimate weapon at their command. They are motivated in part by concern for athletes' well being. Most performance-enhancing agents have side effects that can pose an immediate or long-range threat to health. But the officials are driven by self-interest too. If the public perceive major sports to be hopelessly drug-ridden, attendance and television viewership is likely to plummet. And thatcould lead to financial ruin for athletes and promoters alike. The monetary stakes are higher today than ever before. Many of the top athletes damned very high salaries, and a select few demand huge additional sums for product endorsement. Pro team owners, meanwhile, are constantly scrambling for more income from broadcasting and other sources to meet their massive payrolls and still turn a profit. A series of drug scandals might well cause media outlets and corporate sponsors

Athletes using performance enhancing drugs has been a problem since the late 1990’s. For the athletes the use of steroids are cheap, easy to access, and effective; that is until now. Collegiate Student Athletes should be drug tested every season for illegal substances before they are allowed to play. There are many reasons why these athletes should be tested, such as the negative effect steroids have on their bodies, the drugs are illegal to use, and if caught using these drugs the athletes careers could be over.

They’re many reasons why college athletes would take performance enhancers drugs during their college eligibility term. Being a college athlete myself, I can understand how people rationalize or persuade themselves in taking steroids. Most of the time athletes ego’s get in the way where they think they are unstoppable and that nothing can ever cause harm to them. They get in the mindset that the effects of steroids in the short-term with out way the consequences in the long term. Some college athletes also just to have a shot at playing the game professionally and the million dollars come from it can solve any problem. Some college athletes believe that there is no life outside the sport they play and there is no plan B for them. College athletes also use steroids as a way for them to try to prevent injuries and to push their bodies well passed the normal limits.

sport to better themselves as an athlete. Many sober athletes work day and night to get

“CRACK” and there goes his third home run for the game. This has never happened in his baseball career until today and many people are asking questions. Is this natural? Or is there something going on behind the scenes? As it turns out, he had actually been using performance enhancing drugs (PED) for the past seven months leading up to the game. PEDs have become very common in today’s time. Athletes around the world use these products to push the boundaries and to strive for greatness. When people think of PEDs they think it has to do with professional or college students but it has found its way onto high school campuses. High school student want to improve their skill so they can make it to the next level. PED’s among high school students and athletes is becoming more prevalent and has serious consequences in how the drugs affect their bodies.

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

Steroids were first invented in the 1930’s. The Germans experimented the steroids on their own dogs and their prisoners to stay fit and healthy because their prisoners suffered from malnutrition. In 1950’s many athletes came to know about the steroids. They came to know that steroids are very good for their sports as these can help them in achieving their goals with less effort. The athletes mainly used steroids for power lifting beating all the records of the past. It was then proven that testosterone was the only reason behind the magnificent results in the athletes. No sooner Dr. Ziegler and his workers in the lab started working on testosterone and tried to make it more and more refine and pure. After seeing the results of some athletes others started to use the steroid too. The use of steroid was so common that the steroid could be found easily everywhere. Then on March 1 1991 the federal anabolic control act was in effect putting anabolic steroids oh the schedule

Performance-enhancing drugs (PED 's) have been an issue for many decades now for the medical and sports field. Olympic and professional athletes have been using them to gain an upper hand on the competition, but some may ask if it 's really worth it? Studies show that performance-enhancing drugs have been proven to negatively affect the health of athletes who take them. Simply put, performance-enhancing drugs could either improve athletic performance or can be extremely dangerous, in certain situations, deadly. There have been strict rules and drug testing in the professional sporting organizations, as well as in world competitions. For example, in the summer of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, in two of the

For many years, performance-enhancing drugs have become very prevalent all over the world. A lot of people have struggled with making the decision to take them and then suffer the repercussions of their choice. Most of the time, its athletes that take PEDs and they then have a lot of influence over other people regarding the use of drugs to improve their work. Performance-enhancing drugs have become widely used all over the world and can cause many harmful effects on people’s bodies, minds, and reputations.

Abstract:  With the increase of competition has also come the need to become bigger and stronger than the opponent.  The use of steroids among athletes has caused the focus of the game to change.  No longer does an athlete want to win by doing their best, but they want to become bigger and have an advantage over the opponent.  Ultimately, all athletes feel that they need to use performance-enhancing drugs to compete at the same level. Despite all of the warnings and information on performance-enhancing drugs, athletes continue to use them and overlook the potential health risks associated with steroids.