Steroid Nation

Dark days are upon us in the world of sports. With new drug busts every month from Belgium to China to Baltimore, large investigations finally coming to a head, and new names leaking out seemingly every week, there are certainly some very sweaty brows forming on some very nervous athletes. The annoying background noise that was performance enhancement drug (PED) use in sports has now become a deafening roar.

The past five years have offered only a glimpse into the pervasiveness of steroid usage—the proverbial smoke to what may really be a raging fire. It began with the Bay Area Lab Co-operative back in 2003, and has been slowly accelerating ever since. Given the ugliness surrounding our dear Barry “Balco” Bonds’ taking of the title of all-time homerun champ it would be an understatement to say that people don’t like this whole steroid business much. But there’s no avoiding it: With guys like wunderkind Rick Ankiel, Olympic hero Marion Jones, and Patriot Rodney Harrison all going down in the last few months, the question is no longer who’s using, but who isn’t using. And we may get some answers shortly—very likely beginning with George Mitchell’s two on baseball, expected to be issued in the coming months.

But what are we to do? It’s incredible to consider the amount of vitriol the steroid issue has already inspired. Baseball was practically seized in a wave of hate and anger over what appeared to be a cheater acquiring the greatest record in all of sports. People bemoaned the ultimate triumph of evil over good, treating Bond’s achievement as though it heralded the final destruction of Western civilication and any semblance of human decency. But what happens when the “cheater” is someone on our favorite team next? What happens if it turns out to be all of them, even those we like to consider angels? Should we then discount professional sports as a complete and utter fraud?

These are the questions that every sports fan will have to answer as we are each forced to evaluate our individual philosophies about sports. If sports are entertainment to you, PEDs are a welcome improvement—heck I wouldn’t mind seeing 600 foot home runs more often, especially given the disputed nature of alleged negative effects of some PED’s. But if sports are something sacred to you, then this potentially widespread impurity must be disconcerting.

However, the very suggestion that sports are somehow above vice is flawed. It seems odd that many sports fans can’t seem to accept PEDs, but are perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to the corrupting influence of gambling, collegiate athletics scandals, the business-first nature of most professional franchises, and the myriad of other problems that plague sports. Sports are not and have never been pure. Even regarding Bonds’ “asterisked” home-run record, too many baseball fans forget that the old home run king himself admitted to using PEDs in his playing days. In most halls of fame, cheaters abound—they are the rule, not the exception.

Rejecting steroids, cheating, and all that they represent would essentially be rejecting American society and all it represents. The hyper-ambitious culture that America has adopted has both good and bad aspects to it. On the positive side, to a certain extent, you have groups like us Harvard students, who (supposedly) by sheer force of will, determination, sweat, and drive, have worked our way into this grand institution. But at the other end, you have the increasingly burdensome and unyielding pressure to perform. With the difference between success and a failure—in sports at least—boiling down to mere milliseconds, the incentives are all in place for PED’s to creep in. The way I see it, to be a professional athlete and not use PED’s right now would be tantamount to not striving—the epitome of what America detests.

When you approach the steroid issue from the standpoint of incentives, the real moral of the story is that athletes are just like us. The same way we all jeopardize our health up by staying up late to study, athletes are willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. And just like many of us work so hard because this what the Goldmans and the McKinseys want, athletes will say this is what their fans, their coaches, and their teammates want. Combine these more abstract incentives with the fact that there are millions of dollars on the line, and it’s reasonable that somewhat excessive measures could come into play. In all honesty, what is the real difference (disregarding legality, of course) between a Red Bull for us and a steroid for them? The motivations are the same, and the attempt to portray steroids some sort of perversion of our own hyper-striving culture is an unfair one.

So no, it doesn’t offend my sports-fan sensitivities that athletes are resorting to every possible means to success, and it shouldn’t offend yours either. That’s their job. If anything, it should make you feel closer to your favorite athlete. The pervasiveness of steroid use reminds us of something we too often forget about professional athletes: They’re only human.



Aparicio J. Davis ’10 is an economics concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.