By Antonio Romo
Performance enhancing drugs at the college level is scarce, but the accessibility and pressure the athletes undergo can be a defining factor to steroid use.
College level sports are slowly becoming a mainstream attraction to students and American followers nationwide.
Coaches now look at college level sports as potential for drafts, because now-more-than-ever players are being scrutinized for their statistics, tendencies, and physical appearance. All of which are contributing factors for a student to look for ways to progress their game.
In a study done by NCAA it was found that a 1.1% of college athletes in 3 divisions have ingested steroids with 47% using it as a performance enhancer.
The reason they have such low numbers is because random testing is not done frequently.
Also, due to a tight budget in the school systems colleges do not want to spend the money needed to provide a thorough investigation.
With that being the case, more college athletes are testing positive for drugs like marijuana, and alcohol.
That same study found that .7 percent of players said steroid availability was not one of the reasons they didn’t use steroids.
It seems that performance enhancers have always been available to the young athletes looking to be successful in a sport.
Now with the media broadcasting college sports it becomes necessary for athletes to stand out in order to turn professional.
The pressure of competition amongst athletes to be the best can cause the student to peer pressure into performance enhancing substances.
Students looking to get a full scholarship to top universities all over the country can easily fall victim to the drugs.
Not only are steroids used as a performance enhancers, but also as a recovering method for injuries.
Injuries often occur in college sports and for those students looking to make their sport a profession, a fast recovery is necessary.
53% of athlete’s use steroids to help speed up the healing process. Scouts from college to professional level sports look for a consistent player, an injury is the player’s worst nightmare. For example Kevin Ware big injury t the college basketball game said “don’t worry about me. I’ll be ok you guys win this thing.” To maintain a positive image, a player has to heal as quickly as possible.
Albert virgin a former student at LACC said steroids in the locker room is common and has used anabolic steroids, but he thinks “It diminishes the natural development of an athlete and eliminates the hard work one has to put in order to be the best” he also stated that it goes back as far as high school where some of his old friends introduced steroids claiming that it never hurt anyone”. One can go to the local GNC and find a performance enhancer.
In a country where sports is integrated into our culture, it is really easy to become determined to be the greatest, and most recognized athlete.
And with the examples of great players, seen as heroes, who have admitted to using performance enhancers such as Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, it becomes very easy to mimic them. What has happened to morality in sports, when blood sweat and tears won you the greatness every real player desires?
