Druggies in Sports

Over the past years many stars after their prime have come out saying that they've used illegal drugs sometime in their careers. To me, this after the fact apology hurts the most. I would have been happier had the programs that test these athletes come forward and say before the race, or the game, or the match that they've found an illegal substances in their tests OR THE PLAYERS JUST DON'T DO IT! There are many reasons in my eyes why this hurts and why it's annoying.

I was in love with the famous track star Marion Jones. She was black like me and she was a runner as was I. I looked up to her and I even had her poster on my wall as a kid. I was so proud of her whenever she ran. I believe that I would or could be that fast one day. Then, she comes out and says she used illegal drugs and I was crushed. It was the truth, but I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to believe that it could be true, but it was. Now, Lance Armstrong, a man who has won so many bike races is being accused of blood fusion. Again, I loved this guy. I think he is a wonderful athlete and a pretty good guy. My whole thinking about him has changed. I used to wear those Livestrong bracelets. I remember everyone in my high school going crazy over those things. He does so many other good things that for me to look at the bad is hard.

With most things and most people I like to know what I'm dealing with before. I would have rather been a little kid seeing this Marion Jones lady on TV getting into trouble with the law or Lance Armstrong or any of the many players in sports around the country getting into trouble for the illegal drug use before they became great. These athletes probably could have done without the drugs. They could have been great without them, but they started using and they didn't stop. Being the best is only great when you can tell the kids that you did it without drugs. You did it with your own will power. You did it with great coaches.

It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for the athlete because now everyone sees them as a fraud, but it's embarrassing to the doctors and the nurses and whoever works at these testing centers. Someone paid you off, did they hold you at gun point? What happened that these doctors didn't tell when they saw these test and didn't report them? But it also says something about the althlete because if he is an advance drug user someone might not even have found anything when looking at his blood or urine. This means that we need to step up our testing. All of these cases are coming out years later after everyone thinks these great stars are really great and not frauds.

For me, it's too late to really take away their gold medals. I will still see that person as a gold medal winner. I will always see that person as the best in the world. There will always be that person standing next to me to remind me that it didn't count, but you can't erase those memories from my head. It's just so hard. And for the second place winner that now gets the gold medal...great. Do they get a ceremony on TV? Does the world know their name? Do they get endorsed by the biggest names in sports? Probably not. 

I hope that these doctors and technology advances, so we can figure out the fakes from the real athletes. I feel like there will be others coming forward or getting accused. I just wish that athletes would stick to playing the sport the good ol' fashioned way.