Sports Safety IQ

Steroids and Girls, Spring Break and Athletes

Parents and coaches, take heed. The Sports Safety IQ tip for this week is that news on steroid use and abuse is breaking daily and you need to keep up. I have run into no fewer than nine different steroid stories recently that have left my head spinning.

Story #1: I picked up these eye-openers at the US Lacrosse National Convention, where I sat in on the Sports Science & Safety committee meeting where I learned that the fastest growing group of steroid users is teenage girls. The majority of these girls are not using PED's for athletic purposes, but simply as a diet aid to achieve a lean, muscled physique. Read on at Forbes.com, "Many Teen Girls Use Steroids."

The Shame of Steroids in Sports

The rampant use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs among pro and amateur athletes is as disgusting as it is tragic. The creation of supermen and superwomen  -- and our passive acceptance of them as athletes to worship -- is damaging sports, ruining lives and eroding the values of the next generation of athletes.

How many more kids will be disappointed by athletes like Marion Jones, Floyd Landis and others who will fall off their pedestal before sports organizations take a hard line with drug users? How many situations like the murder-suicide of pro-wrestler Chris Benoit will occur before we vote with our viewership and our dollars that this is not acceptable?