Blogs : Hugh Murphy

Steroids I

I’ve avoided the topic of drugs in sports because I don’t want to get dragged into an issue that I could spend days writing about.  So, I’m limiting myself to 200 words per entry on the topic.

Two things in particular that are bothering me: 

1. Everyone was shocked by the Mitchell report. – This bothers me because track and field has developed a reputation as “the dirty sport.” Track’s drug testing isn’t perfect, but track, unlike baseball and football, actually tries and succeeds (sometimes) at catching people, no matter how much of a superstar they are.

2. The scope of human potential has been lowered. – I hate the fact that people look at record books and watch fantastic performances and speculate on whether or not they were clean.  I don’t know how many times I have heard: “I wonder what the clean  world record in the shot put is?”

I hate to think that many of us will lower the bar on what we think is humanly possible.  There are some amazing athletes out there who are turning in some amazing performances without the use of steroids.  These are the athletes that have the most confidence in their potential.

Untitled Comment

4:48 PM, January 4, 2008 .. Posted by fturner92

Man I hate this too. But the good thing about our sport I think is that we have the best accountabilaty sytem out there. Although there will be speculation, the suspensions and lifetime bans in track kind of take some of the dark cloud from the sport and move it to those caught. Track still needs to be cleaned up, but we are much farther along than any other sport as far as testing, accountability, and punishments. Just look at baseball, there in a much worse state than track & field

I agree

7:23 PM, January 4, 2008 .. Posted by hmurphy

I agree with you completely. Track still has a ways to go, but we're years ahead of baseball and football.

Also....it's good to see another thrower on this site. Good luck this year.