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Logan Driggs

Stacey Frazier

Comp 1

September 18, 2019

Athletes & Substance Abuse

Once athletes start high school sports their experience changes a lot the competition, the

atmosphere, and the rules of the game on and off the field. Most of the time high school is when

young athletes are introduced to drugs and performance enhancing drugs (PED’s). Substance

abuse with drugs and PED’s is the number one thing that kills athletes’ careers. It can start at any

level high school, college, and the pros or big league. From smoking just, a little joint to taking

steroids to make you have a better performance. Any of those things can strip an athlete of his or

her athletic career. Even if it is just smoking a small joint for their first time, all it takes is one

time to ruin an athlete’s career or even worse their whole life.

High school is where it all begins for athletes. Athletes are introduced to drugs and PED’s

their freshman year, in some cases a lot earlier than that. It is a violation for high school athletes

to have drugs or PED’s in their system. Although most schools do not drug test their athletes, so

in some cases there are athletes who are taking drugs and PED’s throughout all high school and

never get caught. The only way to stop this substance abuse with athletes would be to drug test

the athletes, even if some parents disagree. The parents need to realize not only could it ruin their
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kids’ career but taking drugs and PED’s could also get their kid arrested and thrown in jail. The

schools are not drug testing to get athletes in trouble, they drug test so that they can save their

lives. Starting this kind of substance abuse this early in life can set any school student up for

failure. Schools have the right to drug test any student that participates in any extra curricular

activities. Now weather or not the school punishes the athlete is their decision, but they should

not ignore the substance abuse problem. If schools do not tackle the problem when they have the

chance most athletes will keep the substance abuse going and either end up in millions of

situations like dropping out of school that could lead up to the teen being a druggy for the rest of

their life because they give up, getting stripped of any scholarships and awards, getting arrested

or worse case death.

College athletes taking drugs and PED’s can sometimes be a trickle-down effect from

high school. Although in college the circumstances are a lot more severe and it is highly unlikely

that an athlete will get away with that kind of substance abuse. Division 1 college athletes take

drug test all through out the year, mostly for marijuana. Even in the states where marijuana is

legal, athletes who have a weed card still cannot have it in their system while being on a team.

The punishments for testing positive for drugs and PED’s in D1 athletics can range anywhere

from paying a fine and having to sit out for a game or two or being kicked out of the university

and in some cases depending on how bad the situation is the athlete could be arrested. The

athlete sometimes is not to blame, some universities will not say a word about drug and PED’s.

Out of hundreds of D1 schools the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) cannot catch

everything that happens at these universities. In this case you can still punish the athlete, but the

university should also be the one to be punished for letting someone’s child take drugs under
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their supervision. Everyone has control of their actions but when it comes to college kids, they

need extra guidance. They are not at home most of the time so mom and dad or whoever are not

there anymore to make sure their doing what is right, so the university, coaches and staff should

take some responsibility and discipline the athletes the best they can.

The pro level athletes have the least severe punishment but at the same time they also

have more leeway just because they are “famous”. In pro sports most athletes at one time have

done drugs or taken PED’s even if it was a banned substance or not. Over the hundred some

years that pro sports have been around hundreds of careers have been destroyed by substance

abuse related to drugs and PED’s. If it was not for PED’s Barry Bonds would have never hit so

many homeruns. If it wasn’t for marijuana Ricky Williams would have probably been one of the

greatest wide receivers of all time. Before marijuana was legal in some states and praised for its

health benefits NBA star Allen Iverson suffered from substance abuse with marijuana. In today’s

world most organizations depending on what state you are in cannot do nothing about marijuana

because it legal. Although, pro athletes have never been really punished that bad for drugs and

PED’s but when it does become a problem, they just have a fine and are told not to do it again.

Some pro athletes struggle from substance abuse because of pain killers or drug that helps with

their pain. After so many fines and punishments they will eventually be kicked out of the league.

Eventually, it leads to depression and then the dominos just continue to fall from their until they

find help and overcome their problems or overdose on drugs.

Substance abuse with drugs and PED’s plays a role in all sports and can start at any level

high school, college, and the big leagues. There is nothing more heartbreaking then seeing an

athlete who has the ticket to take him to the top, but they fall to the temptation of substance

abuse. Most athletes cope from it well and use it as a positive to tell their life story or to
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overcome the feeling of failure and defeat that comes with substance abuse. Sadly, there are the

some that let it swallow their life and it ruins them. It’s all about how the athlete takes control of

the situation and moves on from it.