A deviant is an act or a person that differs from the norm, especially behavior or attitudes that differ from acceptable social standards.
Examples of Deviance in Society and Sports
- Using Illegal Drugs (society)
- Violent Crimes - murder/rape/battery/abuse (society)
- Stealing - robbing a bank (society)
- Fighting (sports)
- Bounty Hunting (sports)
- Academic Cheating (sports)
- Performance Enhancing Drugs (sports)
- Gambling (sports)
- Illegal Recruiting Practices (sports)
There is an ongoing debate between the side of why PED's should stay illegal and why PED's should be legalized. There are moral, legal, and role modeling reasons why athletes shouldn't take PED's:
- Moral Reasons - Gives the athlete an unfair advantage, undermines the true spirit of the sport, and reflects badly on those athletes not using PED's.
- Legal Reasons - It is against the U.S. Law and the laws of sport.
- Role Modeling - Using PED's sets a bad example to others, especially young people who copy their heroes and put their lives at risk, and it gives sport a bad image and lowers its status.
Performance Enhancing Drugs have changed the game of baseball forever. Whenever an athlete in the MLB achieves something great, the first question asked is always, "Is he on steroids?" It has created a sort of "witch hunt" to try and find out which athletes are and which athletes are not using PED's. Ted Berg, of USA Sports, wrote an article titled 4 reasons the Baseball Hall of Fame should include steroid users
, on December 27th, 2013. Reason number 1 that Berg states in the article is "Ending the With Hunt." Hall of Fame voting has turned from being fun into a search for players that have cheated and trying to determine who hasn't. Reason number 2 is "Saving the Hall of Fame." If those who used PED's are banned from the Hall of Fame, there will be a big gap in Hall of Fame members form the "steroid era." Reason number 3 is "Recognizing Humanity." This basically means that everyone is human, even athletes. The last reason is "Celebrating Great Players." Use of PED's or not, there are still a large number of great players that will never get into the Hall of Fame because they have been accused of using steroids. Taking PED's does not give you the skill to hit a baseball. The message that this article left me with was that whatever your opinion is, PED use in sports is a huge problem and something greater needs to be done about it.
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| Former St. Louis Cardinals baseball player, Mark McGwire *photo is not real |
Connecting to the text, Jay Coakley discusses performance enhancing substances on pages 179-187 of his book Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies. In terms of PED use in sports, Coakley shares a very good quote with the readers, "There are only a few good apples in the barrel, and they're not winning any medals." We have gotten to the point where when the media breaks a story about an athlete getting caught for using PED's it is no longer shocking. We have become numb to this kind of news. Coakley goes in-depth on all of the measures that are being taken to try and reduce the use of PED's in sports like testing, but after taking it all in, I am becoming more and more persuaded that the best route is to let the athletes do what they want with their body. It is unrealistic to thing that PED use will ever stop in sports, and it is also unrealistic to think that every person who uses PED's will be caught and penalized. If the athletes were allowed to do as they please, it everything would run a lot smoother in the world of sports.
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