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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Orange County, NC

    Steroids in Football

    It's obvious that steroids are everywhere in baseball, track, etc. However, little has been said about performance enhancers in football. To me the question is the 'resurrection' of the pro athlete late in their careers - a la McGuire, Clemens, Bonds.

    Anabolic steroids make you stronger but HGH seems to give you life after sports death. This leads me to question a few players in the NFL who seem to be a little chipper for their old age. For starters: Favre, Strahan, Seau, etc..

    Ideas and corrections welcome.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    I say this with caution out of concern for the kids (I usually use that sarcastically but this time I mean it) but I think that it is time that we demand that the show that is professional sports (yes, track is included here) stop the damn war on performance enhancing drugs because money drives the bus and they (whoever really, really, really wants to, and I don't think that there are any of those) will never win it.

    It is not possible to put all that money behind rewarding performance and than say you are against what it enhances it. The two do not jibe.

    What I think is that everyone should try for the safe use of these drugs. What is "safe" is a difficult line to draw. I say, so what!

    Look at the mayhem that intense competition driven by huge financial rewards has wrought (for those of you who don't, you must watch Bryant Gumble who runs pieces from different perspectives on this almost every week, the latest being the perspective of the wives of emotionally and physically beaten and broken NFLers whom noone has ever hardly heard of) and realize that there are health risks no matter which way you go.

    I have been and will remain an advocate for making the rules of the games we play and watch different so that violent injury-causing play is reduced, but I am also a realist. The mob will get the show that they demand, and the guys with the real cash (the owners) will create the demand for more and more injury-causing play. That has been the ever steepening trend, and it shows no signs of abatement.

    Let players get the help they need to enjoy playing those games and then being able to go home, at least in the off season, and for however long after their playing days end, and be able to bend down and pick up or play with the kids.

    So, I am for ending this war on steroids and hgh, but instead am in favor of their intelligent use. For the kids, in the end, I think that we really should do this for them. There, now me and Congressman Waxman and the Repub from Northern Virginia, not to mention Bud and the other owners, are all on the same page. Yeah, only they are in the public eye and have wealth and power, and all I got is you, well I wish that that is what I got. In fact, I fear that it actually is just me and Bryant taking on the world. Glad I got him to help. (winky face.)

  3. #3
    Steroids? In football!!??!?!?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Orange County, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    Steroids? In football!!??!?!?
    Good point. I guess my question is 1) why do we not hear anything about it when its obviously more rampant than in baseball? 2) Do people care as much about it (ie. football records vs. baseball records)?

    I mean the sheet can kill you or make your neck look like it got beat with a hot rake. As greybeard said, wise use. But does that mean just older players or kids too.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Waterloo, Ontario (unfortunately, no longer in London England).
    Quote Originally Posted by pamtar View Post
    Good point. I guess my question is 1) why do we not hear anything about it when its obviously more rampant than in baseball?

    The answer is easy - $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

    Plus, if you were to remove steroids from football the entire nature of tyhe game would be altered.

  6. #6

    HGH in the boardroom

    I don't think Favre takes performance enhancing drugs, recreational not so sure. Junior Seau pretty sure the answer would be yes. Look Rodney Harrison actually got caught for using HGH not an easy thing to do. I hate to sound too cynical but the Patriots may have been on to this HGH trend before other teams. They figured they could squeeze some extra years out of older players if the older players did really good intense conditioning don't ask don't tell.

    To me the more interesting question is can a 70 yr old executive perform like a 60 yr old executive if given HGH. If McCain wins the presidency maybe he needs HGH in the second term.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Quote Originally Posted by pamtar View Post
    Good point. I guess my question is 1) why do we not hear anything about it when its obviously more rampant than in baseball? 2) Do people care as much about it (ie. football records vs. baseball records)?

    I mean the sheet can kill you or make your neck look like it got beat with a hot rake. As greybeard said, wise use. But does that mean just older players or kids too.
    There is the rub, as the Great Bard would say. Regrettably, I'd say yes, with this caveat, which is not well thought out and will ramble and perhaps even be incoherent. We are brainstorming here, boys and girls, and we all know how my brain, er, can storm.

    Performance enhancing drugs below the pro level should be forbidden, and anyone using it should be banned from performing in any organized venue, including high school ball, prep school ball, AAU ball, and any other kind of ball in which anyone involved is paid a nickel and that includes managers, coaches, and perhaps even refs. Any shoe or apparel company that provides money to a team that has a player who has already been cited for using should incur a substantial fine (paid team officials and club managers should need to certify that none of their players have been cited).

    Anyway, I am all in favor of laws being enacted, that think these things out, but that strongly take the use of these enhancers out of play in the below college ranks.

    College athletes would have to be thought through; these kids are near professionals. Can't even brainstorm about that at this point. Actually, I take it back; one strike and you are out, period. The science would have to be overwhelming in favor of deliberate misuse.

    Young pros are pros, period.

    An interesting aside. There was a piece on TV this week about a former major league pitcher who had a stellar career. He began using after he was drafted and was a long drink of water. He said that he would never have made it to A ball without the juice. He said he gained 60 lbs in a half year or so, and used throughout his major league career which included a stint with the Yanks during one of their Championship years. He decided to stop using because of health concerns. While he lost no strength as such, he was like Sampson; the power was gone. The pitching coaches were befuddled. He wasn't and quit. He started a new life as a family man and is ashamed of himself. Feels his accomplishments were not his and that he betrayed his fellow players--no, not the pros, all those who never made it. Very revealing.

    Wonder if the guy would feel otherwise if use had not been illegal and banned in the game. I'd like to think not. Informed choices and personal responsibility are in the end the last best hope, at least in my view.

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