I am not against steroid use in professional sports...

Wetzelbill

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Jul-22-07 02:19 PM
Original message

I am not against steroid use in professional sports...

Not necessarily.

Right now, they are illegal, so yes, I don't believe an athlete should use a banned substance in a sport, whether it is human growth hormone, EPO, Anabolic steroids or whatever. If it is banned by a sport, then an athlete shouldn't use it.

Here is a confession, and a little bit about my background. I was once a serious athlete. (both as a wrestler and a bull rider, but wrestling became my primary focus eventually) I was one of those guys who was probably a notch under being world class. (I do plan on coming out of retirement to find out whether I was good enough or not for sure, it's just something I have to do before I get too old) At one time, I considered taking steroids. Partly to help heal up some serious injuries, and also partly because I am small, and the World Body eliminated the two lowest weight classes, which effectively ended my career. This was also before MMA had weight classes or submission wrestling caught on. I had no place to go, so I had to either bulk up or retire. I considered both, and I considered using anabolic steroids as a measure if I was to bulk up.

In the end, I had seperate health issues that hastened my retirement, but before that, I decided against using steroids.

Why?

Well, for a wrestler, I didn't think it was necessary. Through adequate nutrition and supplementation, coupled with hard work and a weight lifting regimen that consisted of heavier weights, lower repetitions and lifting until failure, I believed a shortcut was unnecessary. I was an athlete in a combat sport, not an athlete who was a power lifter or bodybuilder. I felt I could gain muscle effectively using my brain. Most of the battle in building muscle is knowing how to do it. It's a science. It's technique. Sure, the work is hard, but you can work even harder and lift foolishly and never make the gains you could by utilizing the proper science of it all. I felt it wasn't practical for me as a wrestler to take a shortcut, and nor was it ethical in that instance.

And in my comeback, should I fully undertake it, I will not use any illegal substances, not steroids or anything like that.

That being said, here is why I am not against the use of steroids in professional sports. And notice that I said "professional." I don't believe High School and College age athletes should use steroids at all. But pros, that may be a different story.

Steroids aren't necessarily bad for a person at all, under the proper guidance. It's the abuse that does the damage. If you look at elite professional bodybuilders those guys are juiced up to the max, yet the truly elite guys never have the damaging health problems that we have seen from steroid users in other sports. Why is that? Because elite bodybuilders use anabolic steroids under doctor supervision. They do it properly. They get bloodwork done routinely. They are monitored closely and given physicals constantly.

Is that necessarily ethical from a competitive standpoint? In bodybuilding it is, because everybody uses. It's part of the sport. You couldn't even get on stage if you never used. Not really possible.

In baseball though is it ethical? No, it's not. Steroids are a banned substance. Now anyway. Ten years ago they definitely were not. They weren't tested for or anything. So even then using performance enhancers wasn't the most ethical thing either. Prohormones weren't even banned then. (I used those, sometimes I still do, they are over the counter supplements, however if I was to compete again, I wouldn't touch them for ethical purposes, but as a civilian they are fine) So the use of steroids in baseball before they were effectively tested for and banned is a sketchy problem. They aren't truly ethical, but then they weren't exactly defined by baseball as cheating, even though other sports definitely have them banned and tested for.

Now, if baseball, football or any other sports decided to regulate steroids by not making them a banned substance and allowing athletes to use them with a doctor's prescription and under their care, I would not be opposed to that. I wouldn't be happy about it either, but I could see that and understand that action.

Because if used properly and under a physician's care, steroid abuse and the health risks involved could be nullified as much as possible.

Now I know I am opening myself up to a big critique, and I, myself, have serious questions about it too. Because I can't say that it would be altogether right even if banned substances were monitored by the sport in this manner.

But I will say this, and I think every sports fan should consider this as well.

We are all fickle and greedy as fans.

When I watch football, I love to see some monster linebacker knock somebody nearly senseless.

When I watch baseball, I love to see a muscled up hitter hit a tape measured home run out of a stadium.

When I watch anything, I love to see athletes perform almost super human feats. And if athletes weren't constantly raising the bar, time and time again, well maybe at some point I would tune out. Or tune in a little less often.

Many fans would.

And step back and think about when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were chasing after Roger Maris's home run record in 1998. That was compelling. It was riveting. It gave baseball, a declining sport, a veritable shot in the arm, after several years of listlessness.

And McGwire wasn't clean. He was almost definitely a steroid user. I am not so sure Sosa was clean either.

Oh you could argue baseball is a hand-eye coordination game, and that would be true. I know I could be juiced up with everything in the book and probably could barely even see a 95 MPH fastball let alone hit one.

But that doesn't make it right. And you take a guy who maybe hits twenty balls a year near or around the warning track, juice him up and he's hitting those twenty balls a little further now and you're beginning to make a major difference in the game.

Those extra home runs are what we embrace. Those extra hard bone crunching hits etc.

We love to see those.

We pay good money to do it too.

We demand super human performances.

And athletes pay for it. 300 pound men are not supposed to be able to be that strong or that fast, and neither is a 220 pound running back, so when they hit, it's an ugly scene. And they do it over and over and over. They get concussions. Blow out knees. Wreck shoulders. Destroy their backs.

Later on in their lives these guys can barely get around. They can barely find a comfortable position to sleep in. Most can barely play with their children or have sex with their wives, because their bodies are broken down.

I know this because in many ways I have those same injuries. I wrecked my shoulders. Blew out my knee. Hurt disks in my back and neck. Dislocated my elbow.

And all this was without getting beaten on the way, say an NFL running back is beat on.

So in the end, if all steroids were taken out of sports, given what we have come to expect of athletics, and the price athletes are willing to pay with their bodies, would anybody actually sit back and watch sports that were totally clean and drug free?

I am not so sure anybody would. Even if we say we would. Because why sit around and watch something that was not as exciting as it was before?

Like I said, we are fickle and we are greedy.

And if steroids were regulated and administered and monitored by doctors, well, maybe us demanding fans and the risk taking athletes could all get our cake and eat it too.

Maybe.

I'm not saying it's absolutely right, but I'd rather see steroids used properly if they are going to be used at all.

And I'm not so sure any of us would be willing to support clean competition if we ever did have it.

We might have passed that point already.