RottenSports.com: Steroids in Youth Sports

Steroids in Youth Sports
By guest author: Rebecca Stigall

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.

Steroid use can cause some pretty complicated side effects. Young men who use steroids can become larger and more muscular very quickly. They can also have bad acne breakouts, they can be shaky, have bad body odor, mood swings, and become aggressive and hard to get along with. For girls, using steroids can make them moody, and give them facial hair and a deeper voice. Unfortunately, many of these things are present during the teen years anyway. Some of the more scary side effects are heart damage, liver damage, and shrinking of the testicles.

Even over the counter steroids have side effects. Protein drinks and steroid powders are available in health food stores and kids have easy access to these products. Since teen steroid users are not done growing the damage that steroids do can mean much more to them than to adults. Even over the counter steroids can cause kidney damage and heart damage.

As many as thirty million kids play a sport in this country and up to 11 percent of those kids have at least tried steroids. Steroids are a drug and using them is illegal. Sometimes kids are introduced to steroids by their coach. There have been some recent stories in the news about coaches who gave their players steroids or who suggested that the player give steroids a try to become a better player. Most often, another player introduces them to the drug either because the user brags about using steroids or a weaker player befriends the stronger one and the steroid user shares his secret. Read more.

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