Blog #6 PEDs

The use of performance enhancing drugs in sports is an ever prevailing force that is not only tarnishing athletes reputations but demoralizing the essence of competition. Baseball, Basketball and Football have been a significant aspect of our culture for generations. Sports used to represent a sense of unity and in some instances attributed to the immersion of two separate cultures. For example lacrosse, a game adapted from Native American tribes indigenous of Canada was originally a "war game," mean to teach military tactics. With the introduction of Europeans this immersion between two separate cultures evolved into the game that we associate with today as the affluent sport of lacrosse.
Sports used to represent much more than gathering in a man cave with a cooler full of frosty bud lights plopped in front of the boob tube and the athletes who are participants are now expected to live not only by higher physical expectations but moral as well. I am not saying our lethargic approach as fans to the perception of sports is dictated by the growing trend of steroid use but they are correlated. The culture of sports has dramatically shifted in play and perception. Not only do fans expect more from athletes but coaches and recruiters are raising the expectancy to be at physical perfection. In sports talent dictates livelihood and in a rapidly growing competition base athletes make decisions to illegally race to be the best. Increased physical talent that simply could not be naturally acquired pressures other athletes to indulge in banned substances. The use of performance enhancing drugs is not only cheating the sport but its cheating the millions of people who idolize these artificially enhanced superior physical specimens.  
 In this culture it is a fact that people idolize super star's, through posters on walls, media, and monuments. The superior athlete used to be an iconic symbol and in some instances represented civil rights movements. Cases like Jackie Robinson, the first professional African American baseball player represented an entire race of individuals and was a symbol of change. Recently the Barry Bond's posters have been ripped off the walls and Live Strong bracelets cut off wrists through this prevailing trend of performance enhancing drug use.
While the majority of the adult population may be discouraged by these actions of betrayal and deceit the inspirational qualities sports generate have not detached everyone, instead it raises another issue. The use of performance enhancing drugs in adolescents is in a neck to neck race with use at a professional level. Trends are a very prominent aspect of our cultural; from musical and art movements to the shift from pompadours and leather jackets. Trends most of all influence the new emerging generation of adolescents and the prevalent trend of succeeding physically through any means is a dangerous one. I feel sports play a tremendous role in building character and preservation of values but this ideology that success by any means is being instilled in our professional and amateur athletes alike and it is deteriorating the moral and cultural foundation that sports were built on.