On August 7, 2007, Barry Bonds broke the all-time home run record held by Hank Aaron for numerous decades. The controversy rose to a higher level shortly after the ball crossed into the stands, though. Its finder sold the ball to an eccentric millionaire, who soon started a website to decide the fate of the ball. Due to the steroid allegations against Bonds, an option for the public to vote upon was to brand the ball with an asterisk and send it to the Hall of Fame. Controversies like this are played out in the media quite often. The media has induced a culture of hyping up illegal steroid usage stories, giving the word “steroid” itself a negative connotation and even influencing the sentiments of legal steroid users. The public has the right to understand the real story behind these media frenzies. Students at Notre Dame are not only a part of this controversy in the media, but they also have an interest in steroids in general because of the athletic tradition at the school. Most students have an interest in sports, and stories of illegal steroid use are prevalent around campus. The media, however, has warped the definition of “steroid” into something that it truly is not, and the burden of the blame rests with one network.
For years, ESPN has been the authority on reporting on the world of sports. Its centerpiece show, SportsCenter, has been home to many of the most famous sports anchors of the last twenty years. As recently as November 2007, they have reported about cleaning up professional athletes and eliminating anabolic steroids in sports. However, this one-sided reporting has contorted the view of steroids in the public eye. Steroid usage is not cheating when it is used for other reasons than gaining a competitive advantage. While most everyone would agree that the use of anabolic steroids in professional sports is a form of cheating, reporting by media outlets has put this negative stigma around the word “steroid.” Webster’s Dictionary defines a steroid as “any of several organic compounds having as basis seventeen carbon atoms in four rings” (Parker). There is no mention of sports, cheating, or strength training in the definition, making it apparent that society, namely the media, has warped this otherwise scientific term to be a symbol for all that is wrong in sports today. From Barry Bonds to BALCO, the average American equates steroids with cheating.
This view is wrong, though. Steroids are frequently used for medical purposes, including inducing male puberty and regenerating muscle mass lost from a cancer or other disease. Furthermore, many everyday medicines contain small amounts of steroids in them. According to MedicineNet, an online site devoted to defining terms used in medicine, hydrocortisone, a common anti-inflammatory drug, has its own steroid family. Cholesterol has the structure after which steroids were named. Even vitamin D, which is found in everything from milk to sunlight, is a steroid (MedicineNet). The negative connotation placed around the word “steroid” is misleading in this aspect, because calling anyone who uses these medicines a cheater because they have used a steroid is illogical. Take, for example, a September 2007 article on ESPN.com entitled “Raw Deal” (Assael). In the story about illegal steroid busts made by the DEA, the word “illegal” was placed before the word “steroid” only three times. One reader even posted an online response with the phrase “the steroid problem,” but the only problem I see is in the media and the harmful undertone that it produces.
According to About.com in their informational article entitled “Anabolic Steroids Use and Abuse,” steroids can present serious long-term side effects. First, they can adversely affect the liver, causing a bleeding condition that can be fatal. Not only is the liver damaged, but steroids can also damage the heart and increase the risk of stroke or heart disease. In males, abuse of anabolic steroids can result in breast growth, decreased size of the testicles, and even impotence (About.com). Finally, a phenomenon known as “roid rage” often occurs when steroids are taken in large, non-medical doses. This abrupt and significant change in personality can lead to erratic and dangerous behavior. In a 1996 Sports Institute of South Africa study, researchers found that those who take anabolic steroids are much more likely to develop personality disorders than those that do not take them. In fact, eighty-three percent of those that took illegal steroids had at least one personality disorder (Mulube). Another high-profile case involves the homicide-suicide of professional wrestler Chris Benoit. Shortly after injecting himself with banned anabolic steroids, he killed his wife and son and proceeded to hang himself. The empty bottles of steroids and the used syringes found at the crime scene pointed to steroid use as part of the problem.
Even with such overwhelming evidence that “roid rage” exists, there are still some that doubt the reality. Dayn Perry states in his article “Pumped Up Hysteria” that “roid rage” does not exist, and there is not enough evidence to convince him otherwise (Perry 33). The aforementioned 1996 study, combined with many studies performed on lab animals, suggest the contrary: the overuse of anabolic steroids directly correlates to a more hostile nature. However, certain studies mention that, even though aggression increases in animals such as mice, it is harder to definitively apply the theory to those higher on the evolutionary ladder, like humans (Perry 33). Still, there have been documented cases of “roid rage” in the general population. Jeremiah Hanner, a college freshman at Indiana University, played baseball for four years at Columbus East High School. To gain a competitive advantage, he took anabolic steroids for two months before realizing the dangers and switching to alternative forms of supplementing his weightlifting regimen. “Yeah, there was definatly [sic] a difference,” Hanner stated in a message over the networking site Facebook.com. He went on to discuss altercations with his girlfriend of more than a year in which he seemed to lose his temper unlike his normal self. “We would just be talking and then I would go off. I didn’t really know why – it just happened.” At the urging of the baseball staff, Hanner got off “the juice” and began taking protein and whey powders instead. “It didn’t do nearly as much, but at least it was safe” (Hanner).
Even further than “roid rage,” there are various effects on abusers compared to legitimate users. David Beck, in his article entitled “Steroids: the good and bad,” lists dozens of possible side effects of using steroids in large quantities. These range from acne to cataracts and even meningitis (Beck). Other side effects include baldness at a younger age, stunted growth, and even facial hair in women (Price). He encourages using the minimum amount of steroid needed to keep a patient healthy when they are required to take them and urges people to work with their doctor. Needless to say, many illegal users of anabolic steroids do not consult a doctor; they rely on their instincts and dreams of getting bigger, faster, and stronger.
Where do these instincts come from – what drives a person to begin taking steroids illegally? John Hoberman tackles this issue in his online article appropriately titled “Testosterone Dreams.” Hoberman cites that the original abusers began taking it in large quantities to, of course, gain tremendous strength, but also to quench the fires of sexual desire through the injection of synthetic male testosterone. He also shows the difference between using steroids for medicinal purposes and using them for cheating purposes. He draws a fine line between “performance enabling,” which allows someone to recover from a disability or illness, and “performance enhancing,” which signifies the cheaters in the sporting world (Hoberman). The author’s ability to show both sides of the story and cover both groups of steroid users prevents his using the same fallacy for which ESPN garnered criticism: taking steroids does not necessarily make you a cheater.
Of course, there are still those who really are cheaters and take steroids. The most famous and recent example is baseball superstar Barry Bonds. An extremely controversial and incriminating book that dealt with this example was published in 2006 by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. The book, Game of Shadows, recorded two years’ worth of evidence following the disgraced steroid lab BALCO and its customers. Many high-profile athletes were indicted in the book, but the biggest name involved was Barry Bonds. The allegations against Bonds included taking ten different steroids as prescribed by his trainer and the ability to eventually inject himself (Fainaru-Wada, Williams). These stiff accusations brought illegal steroids to the forefront once again, and nearly every media outlet included a segment on steroids and their position in sports. The accusations against Bonds climaxed on November 15, 2007, as Bonds was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice when he lied to a federal grand jury in earlier testimony. The high-profile case of Bonds has made steroids an everyday topic in America, and it, more than any other single case, has mislead the general public in terms of understanding the true definition of steroids and for what they are intended.
However, if the Bonds case was covered as a minor news story, the rise in the coverage of anabolic steroids would not have been so great. It is as Jose Canseco puts it in his book Juiced: “Everyone knows the media can portray an event however they want, positively or negatively. […] They can make your career, if they like you, or they can destroy you” (Canseco). The media exerts a tremendous amount of influence over the career of an athlete. Canseco goes as far as to say that they are the most powerful force in an athlete’s career. He speaks about his own baseball experiences, a powerful hitter who took anabolic steroids himself over his eighteen-year career. He claims in the book that he was “created by the media,” failing to shoulder any of the blame himself. While Canseco was a fault for injecting himself, he makes a valid point that the media can pressure an athlete into performing certain actions – like taking steroids – by how they are perceived by the public.
Another prime example of the media greatly affecting athlete is disgraced track star Marion Jones, who was made an American heroine after her amazing performance in the 2000 Olympics. Two sites that covered her admission to using steroids in autumn 2007 were CBS News and a blog written by Gary Bourgeault on Manager’s Realm. One is a firmly-established news source, while the other is a relatively unknown blog between business managers, giving the blog a more money-minded point of view. These two contrasting viewpoints provide both the basic and in-depth analysis of the event and reflect certain attitudes, but both lack points in their arguments. Neither site gives importance to the effect on track and field as a whole. In a sport plagued by doping scandals nearly every year, losing one of its bright stars and most outspoken critics again taking illegal steroids harms their reputation. After one of the ugliest admissions in its history, United States track and field may have a hard time regaining its prestige. Another exclusion in both articles is the lack of a feminist point of view. Jones is one of the first women in recent memory to be charged with doping, and this effect carries over to other women, especially those who consider Jones to be their hero or inspiration for starting track and field in the first place. Her admission places the sport in a state of peril in an age when many steroids are undetectable or covered up through other illegal means.
Even though the media has perpetuated the “steroid circus,” it also does its job in attempting to slow the trend. Each time a player or athlete is caught doping – another term for illegally using anabolic steroids to gain a competitive advantage – it is played out in the media. His or her career, achievements, and future problems are all discussed, and it provides a deterrent for others thinking of doing the same thing. So although it twists the public view, media reporting on the subject provides a positive in terms of being a disincentive for more of the same in the future.
So how can the media correct their past mistakes? How can the public educate themselves on which definitions are correct and which broadcasts show steroids in their true form? The media must take the first step. This troubling continuation of steroid abuse in sports must be given its due coverage, but it cannot continue to be reported in its current form. With each steroid story that unfolds, proper grammar should be used. For instance, using the words “illegal” or “banned” before mentioning steroids helps in two ways. First, it prevents those who must take steroids for medical purposes from being offended. They are not doing anything wrong or illegal, and the tragedy of whatever their sickness is should be respected. Secondly, it would help to correct the public misconception that all steroids are illegal.
I personally believe that this is one of the most critical times in United States history to rectify its international respect. Steroids are plaguing America’s pastime, and the media has played a role in hyping up these stories and giving the word “steroid” itself a negative connotation. From home run king Barry Bonds to track star Marion Jones, heroes are failing to live up to the lofty expectations of their fans, ones gained from national media exposure from outlets like sports channel ESPN. I’m not asking for a broad, sweeping change – only for the media to consider the effect it has on the psyche of the public.
