Cheating in Sports

Has cheating and the use of performance enhancing drugs taken the place of honor and integrity in today’s professional sports? Has the youth of America become more interested in short cuts than hard work and discipline? With the continued reports of cheating and drug use in sports these questions continue to raise questions about the future of professional sports. The effects of these issues have reached such levels as high school sports and the student athletes that compete in them. However, the real question is does America care and is society’s willingness to look the other way destroying the honor and integrity of a once beautiful game?

Drugs have been used in sports almost as long as sports themselves have been around. The Ancient Incas used a form of a drug that helped them to excel in certain tasks, and they would take it before long hunts, battles, and even found it useful in ancient sport competitions. A bicyclist in 1886 took a mixture of cocaine and heroine, called the 'speedball,' and died from it. Little were the doctors aware the epidemic that would follow in the next century. (Dowshen. 2007). Anabolic steroids, developed in the 1930's in Europe, are drugs that help to build new body tissue quickly, but with drastic side effects. Anabolic means the ability to promote body growth and repair body tissue. (Dowshen. 2007). Anabolic comes from the Greek word anabolikos meaning 'constructive.' Steroids are basically made up of hormones. Anabolic steroids are drugs that come from hormones or from combinations of chemicals that achieve the same result as hormones. Hormones may be given to an individual in his or her natural state, or in a synthetic one. The synthetic state is sometimes more potent than the natural one. Testosterone and progesterone are hormones used in steroids; another kind comes from the adrenal glands, which secrete various necessary bodily chemicals. The steroids themselves can be taken orally, as tablets or powders, and can also be...