NFL VS. HGH
A recent discovery that the team doctor of the Pittsuburgh Steelers ordered $150,000 worth of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and Testosterone has raised a question to the National Football League that Major League Baseball has been grappling with, in the public eye, for the past several years. And that question is blunt and unflinchingly direct: is the game clean?
Athletics from the mythological times of the first Olympiad, on to Rome where man battled beast and the approval or disapproval of Caesar and into the inventions of baseball, basketball and football as we know them, has taken on a luster of fan appreciation and obsession. Witnessing the men and sometimes women who perform deeds with their bodies that the average citizen can only imagine accomplishing sets athletes on a pedestal that is so sturdy at the base that not even a hint of a storm could topple it. However, this fact might be changing rapidly.
In this era of digital news no information falls on deaf ears or blind eyes. As America and the world becomes more familiar with technology and the way it speeds the flow of information, people will begin to find out more than they ever wanted to know about their athletic heroes and the games the play and fans love. The implications for the NFL, that the Steelers, one year off a Super Bowl trophy, could become embroiled in a shocking scandal for illegal, performance enhancing drugs, are numerous. The implication for fans, though, has more of a depth; are fans ready to acknowledge that the most popular sport in America is rife with "cheaters" and "cheating"? Are Americans ready to appreciate the game for what it is, but dismantle the idols they placed on top of pedestals of their own making?
Football is a great game, graceful, brutal and strategic. Now, with millions on the line, coroprate sponsorships, million dollar salaries paid and received, is it farfetched to expect the players to do everything they can to be bionic men; bigger, stronger, faster and for coaches and owners to turn the other cheek so they can say they had no knowledge?
In the weeks to come the NFL might have a gigantic problem on its hands as will sporting society in general. Question: is the game clean? And if not, how many players, coaches and owners have their hands dirty? Once these questions are answered the bigger question is how many fans will continue to patronize an establishment that prepares its product without washing their hands of cheating?
Athletics from the mythological times of the first Olympiad, on to Rome where man battled beast and the approval or disapproval of Caesar and into the inventions of baseball, basketball and football as we know them, has taken on a luster of fan appreciation and obsession. Witnessing the men and sometimes women who perform deeds with their bodies that the average citizen can only imagine accomplishing sets athletes on a pedestal that is so sturdy at the base that not even a hint of a storm could topple it. However, this fact might be changing rapidly.
In this era of digital news no information falls on deaf ears or blind eyes. As America and the world becomes more familiar with technology and the way it speeds the flow of information, people will begin to find out more than they ever wanted to know about their athletic heroes and the games the play and fans love. The implications for the NFL, that the Steelers, one year off a Super Bowl trophy, could become embroiled in a shocking scandal for illegal, performance enhancing drugs, are numerous. The implication for fans, though, has more of a depth; are fans ready to acknowledge that the most popular sport in America is rife with "cheaters" and "cheating"? Are Americans ready to appreciate the game for what it is, but dismantle the idols they placed on top of pedestals of their own making?
Football is a great game, graceful, brutal and strategic. Now, with millions on the line, coroprate sponsorships, million dollar salaries paid and received, is it farfetched to expect the players to do everything they can to be bionic men; bigger, stronger, faster and for coaches and owners to turn the other cheek so they can say they had no knowledge?
In the weeks to come the NFL might have a gigantic problem on its hands as will sporting society in general. Question: is the game clean? And if not, how many players, coaches and owners have their hands dirty? Once these questions are answered the bigger question is how many fans will continue to patronize an establishment that prepares its product without washing their hands of cheating?
Labels: HGH, Human Growth Hormone, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Testosterone
posted by KHARI WYATT @ 10:22 AM
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