Juiced Up
Steriods Are Part of the Game
Story by Miguel Gonzalez

Sports in America is about one thing -- winning. Gaining the competitive edge is paramount. This is not a bad thing, except when your competitive energy takes over your character, your outlook on life and has negative, even destructive effects on your mind, body, or soul.   The use of steroids, from the pros to the little leagues, are expressions of this imbalance.

The recent buzz about steroid use in major league baseball should not come as a shock to anybody.   Jose Canseco, an ex pro baseball superstar, recently came out with a book called “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big,” implicating some of the league's top players in steroid scandal.   He says that he injected famous hitters himself like Mark McGwire and has said in TV he is certain the Barry Bonds juices.

Within the context of multimillion-dollar paychecks, fame, prestige, sex, and overall public power, the illegal and seemingly immoral use of steroids by professional athletes becomes understandable, and perhaps even acceptable.

Some wonder how management in professional sports could allow drug use, but they also have a vested interest in their athletes success. Athletes get paid according to how well they perform individually, while team owners and coaches get paid based on how well the team does. And while the individual player might make, just to use an example, a million dollars a game, the team owner or coach may make double, triple, and even quadruple that. Their philosophy, especially of the owners, is Win by any means necessary , even if it means turning a blind eye to, or supporting, steroid use.

Athletes are viewed as “sides of beef,” to quote a young NFL prospect, who wished his name be left out of the article. I was talking to him at the gym in San Jose, and a discussion on steroid use naturally came up with recent release of Canseco's book. He was training to be a part of a developmental league the NFL hosts in Europe, and although he said he never used, his only temptation was when he saw athletes recover from injury faster from juicing.   Talking about the recruiting process, he says, “ And if you get hurt, you had better pray for your body and soul, because they are going to try to make you play before your body is ready, and the only way they can do that is by making you take steroids.”

Now, I have never played professional sports or taken steroids, but I lived a life comparable to this scenario. After high school I was bent on playing professional football, and knew that being big and strong was basic to this dream. I started taking all kinds of protein powders, creatine formulas, androstene -   a pill of hormones supposed to make you stronger but really only gave men bigger chests – and other sports specific supplements. I grew to weigh 225 lbs, and was exceptionally strong. All I cared about was football and being big. And I loved the attention I got from the ladies. This was when I personally found out about the luring, and sexually attractive power that big muscles have on some women. Not only this, but I sensed that many of peers noticed me as well, either out of fear, competition, envy, or insecurity.

Besides all this, I can also say that I had very little connection to my culture, soul, or sense of identity. How could I feel the negative effects of viewing myself as a “big fool,” being viewed by female peers as a sex object ( and treated as one), and being viewed by male peers as competition, or someone to be feared? I couldn't feel the negative side effects. As far as I was concerned, there were none. I loved football with its violence and power, I loved the thought of being big and strong, having women, and being feared by lesser men.

I grew out of this, fortunately. And, I thank god I never used steroids. I was lucky, however, because if the wind would have blown differently, I think I would have used steroids, and possibly continued to the same outlook on people, and life in general. As far as I'm concerned steroid use is more of a symptom than an actual problem. The industry, or game, is sick and the human players are always susceptible to catching the virus of power, wealth, sex, and drugs. The war on drugs still hasn't, and probably never will, launch a movement against the use of steroids.