Bigger. Faster. Stronger. These are but a meager few of the numerous physical attributes which the modern-day athlete strives to attain. The difference between a loss and a victory is painstakingly small – an inch here, a step there, a lucky bounce that sends the ball tumbling through the hoop. To gain an edge against their skilled opposition, players of all sports turn to various methods of training to hone their craft, including lifting weights, running on treadmills, and performing conditioning drills. A few have probably even reaped the benefits of Pilates mixed with a strict diet of Nutella. Others, however, have undertaken a less respectable route toward improved athletic performance – performance-enhancing drugs.
Widespread across all sports, but especially prevalent in activities where size, strength, and speed are concerned, such as football, baseball, and cycling, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) have become frighteningly commonplace at the professional, collegiate, and even high school level. For those who regularly watch SportsCenter or browse through the weeks’ sports stories on Yahoo!, media coverage constantly highlights the athletes who disregard their respective sports’ drug policy. We are shown how the players who subject themselves to taking PEDs not only harm themselves but their teammates, their organization, and their fans. For example, Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers, the favored baseball team of many at Jesuit and in the Dallas area, was suspended by the MLB earlier this season for a total of 50 games because of his violation of its substance abuse policy. His ban cost the Rangers one of the best power hitters in the league, hindering their run at making the playoffs.
Alexander McIntyre ‘14, baseball enthusiast and diehard Rangers fan, felt “disappointed” upon learning of Cruz’s suspension but believes the league was justified in its decision. “Athletes, like everyone else, have responsibilities and obligations from which they cannot be excused,” declares McIntyre. “They must, if choosing to cheat, be fully willing to face the penalty.”
The most widely recognized athlete who has taken PEDs is undoubtedly Lance Armstrong. Despite fervently denying for years that he had ever doped during his racing career, he recently admitted his denial was false. Armstrong has paid a heavy price for his lies, including losing Nike as a sponsor, forfeiting his seven Tour de France titles, losing many friends who defended him, and relinquishing his Olympic bronze medal.
Despite that the ramifications of taking performance enhancing drugs have been clearly illustrated in the sports world, as in the case of Nelson Cruz and Lance Armstrong, there appears to be little sign to the end of doping. Juxtaposing the risk of being caught versus the possible reward of ascending into fame or winning the championship they have always coveted, many professionals opt to choose the latter.
For some, financial stability plays the main role in their decision to take PEDs. Mr. Andrew Armstrong, Jesuit’s cycling team coach and a former semi-professional cyclist, says financial incentive, especially for international athletes, plays a big factor in a cyclist’s decision-making. “In Europe, [out of] all the Tour de France-level pros, the only ones that [have a] college [education] are typically the U.S. [cyclists]. All [these] other [foreign] athletes [come] straight out of high school and go pro. Their backdrop is a life without much financial prospect. They are either going back to their family farm in a small town or back to the mines. So [they] are looking at [the option of either] taking these drugs and potentially making hundreds of thousands of dollars or not taking these drugs and get[ting] pushed back to a [life of] financial insecurity.”
In high school and collegiate sports, however, the risk is much greater while the reward is much less satisfying. While the reasoning behind a professional player taking drugs is obvious, the discernment of an amateur player in taking performance enhancing drugs is less clear.
Coach Jeremy Weeks, Jesuit’s Director of Athletic Performance, believes that a collegiate or high school player’s decision to take performance enhancing drugs begins with the authoritative figures in their playing careers. “A lot of it starts with the coaches,” says Weeks. “If a coach is constantly pressuring a kid to get stronger, sometimes an athlete may take drastic measures to fulfill the desires of the coach.”
But exactly how much of an impact do PEDs make on an athlete? Like anything else, one requires time, talent, and work ethic to excel at his craft; simply taking PEDs does not automatically make one a superstar player. Take, for example, the case of MLB player Ryan Braun, an All-Star for the Milwaukee Brewers who recently admitted to taking PEDs despite vehemently denying that he had done so for years. Alex McIntyre ‘14 offers a fan’s perspective on the matter: “Braun’s situation is…angering due to the extent to which he militantly defended him[self], assuring everyone that he was clean, until he was forced to admit otherwise. [However], I refuse to believe that PED’s can significantly enhance a player’s talent enough so that a mediocre player becomes the All-Star Braun was.”
However, while PEDs may not dramatically transform skill set to an enormous extent, they are often enough to give its user the slight edge needed to award them the victory. Mr. Armstrong experienced this frustrating scenario first-hand as a semi-professional racer. “One time, I [placed] fourth at Nationals and one of the guys ahead of me [who] got second was busted for doping,” recalls Armstrong. “I would have had third place if it wasn’t for his doping. And then same thing [happened] in a race in New Jersey. [A professional] won the race and later admitted to doping, so [his] result was forfeited and he [had] to pay his prize money back. But that prize money never makes its way back to me.”
With his just rewards often unfairly snatched from his grasp, one would think Mr. Armstrong might be slightly tempted to use PEDs himself. But the thought never crossed his mind. “I have always tried to have a very strong value set,” explains Mr. Armstrong. “I don’t want to compromise that for petty excuses. Also, for me, sport is about what I can do with my body. If I have chemicals [in my body], its [the drugs], not me, [that’s controlling my body]. To me, the whole joy of sports and success in sport is [that] I have the body control. I have the muscle control. I put in the hard work and the sweat and the tears to get those muscles to go. [If I took PEDs,] I just wouldn’t enjoy the success as much.”
But all in all, the negative impact that PEDs make on its users remind us how they must be avoided at all costs. These drugs upset the human body’s natural processing and functioning, leading to major problems later in a PED user’s career. Coach Weeks warns of the physiological impact PEDs inflict on the body: “The body naturally produces just about everything the performance-enhancing drugs are giving the body synthetically. If [an athlete is] getting a synthetic source of testosterone, or HGH, then the body is going to stop producing it on its own, because the body is trying to stay at homeostasis. When people take these drugs, their body’s doing everything that it can to maintain…a level of homeostasis so it stops its natural production of whatever you’re taking.”
In addition to its physical consequences, Coach Weeks believes taking PEDs can have psychological ramifications as well. “It is definitely not a good thing [for athletes to use PEDs],” says Weeks. “[Athletes] may become reliant upon [these drugs] and then [set] themselves up with false hopes and false numbers and false measurements [because] when they [stop using PEDs], they keep holding themselves to that same expectation, that same standard, and when they are unable to reach that [same standard] again, they feel…like they are a disappointment.”
Clearly, change is needed. But where can this change come from? Coach Weeks thinks part of the solution to removing the use of PEDs in sports lies with education. Weeks believes that most people are not educated about performance enhancing drugs the way that they should, to the detriment of athletes everywhere. In fact, to help counteract this lack of knowledge, Coach Weeks hopes to create and establish an educational program here at Jesuit about the dangers of PEDs. “[There is the] possibility of having…a performance-enhancing drug education [here at Jesuit]. If there’s a way where instead of coming [to workout] during training time, [Jesuit athletes could watch] a presentation [or listen to] a speaker…on performance enhancing drugs. I think it would be huge because people don’t know about [the dangers of PEDs].”
While some athletes go down the correct path of abstaining from PEDs in their athletic careers, other of their fellow players and teammates may not have the same self-discipline or control. If an athlete is considering taking PEDs, Coach Weeks implores them to think about this: “What are your goals when you are done with sports? Are they to have a family? Are they to have a long life? When sports end, then what? You’re so caught up in the moment, the now, that you don’t think long-term. You don’t think about the consequences from a physiological standpoint of the different synthetic drugs you are putting into your system, and how that affects [your] body’s natural production of those hormones.”
While Coach Weeks’s words of wisdom may be directed specifically towards the harmful effects of performance-enhancing drugs, the message of considering future ramifications rather than fulfilling the pleasures of the present may be applied to almost any area of our lives. Whether it be putting off homework for tomorrow to jump in the pool today or taking drugs that will hurt you later on in life, we would all be sensible to adopt the principles of this message while striving to achieve our goals.
