It used to be that kids would join little league teams excited to play baseball, football and hockey. Young boys all over the country had dreams of being the next Mickey Mantle or Roger Staubauch. These days, as kids innocently join teams ready to begin their dream of becoming a professional in their chosen sport, and as parents cheer from the stands hoping that their little one doesn’t get hurt, the pressure to be bigger, faster and stronger than the other guy gets harder to ignore.
With professional sports contracts paying out millions of dollars for each player every year, a kid’s dreams can bring him fame and a pretty big fortune. But only if he is successful at beating out every other kid with the same dream. Out of the 1,500 or so active professional football players, there are maybe millions of kids who dream of being a great pro quarterback. With those odds, kids, sometimes coaches, and sometimes even parents begin looking for an edge for their child. Even though they are illegal to use more and more kids are turning to steroids to give them the edge they are looking for.
Steroids are hormone drugs that make athletes stronger and more muscular. This is an obvious advantage on the football field. Kids realize that their high school sports years are when college recruiters are going to make offers to the best players to play on a college team. Being recruited by a major college means that the player will get not only a free ride scholarship to the college but will play on a great team and then maybe get a job on a pro team. This is true for high school baseball, soccer, and hockey team players too. Kids are sometimes introduced to steroids as young as junior high school and sometimes the pressure to be the best makes the steroids too hard to resist. Also, some kids are given silent permission to use steroids by their coaches and parents because these adults may recognize the signs that a teen is using steroids but not do anything about it. Continue reading ‘Steroids in Youth Sports’ »