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  • March 26Senior Week starts next week, all seniors who have signed up will be spending advisory, and on Wednesday their lunch periods, in the arena to play games so their teams win
  • March 26Spanish Honor Society is hosting a Spring Dance Competition on Friday, March 29 during Advisory and 1st Lunch. Contestants will be asked to pay a $5 entry fee, and prizes will be awarded to competition winners! If you’d like to compete, click here. // LINK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v6Dz0MT1NWCMUw7RVFslA1QMGNAFyKBoU-HAHG5Ff4Q/edit
  • March 26On March 26th at 5PM the Bryant High School Baseball team will be playing a home game against Central on our Home field
The student news publication of Bryant High School in Bryant, Arkansas

Prospective Online

The student news publication of Bryant High School in Bryant, Arkansas

Prospective Online

Meet the Staff
Erin Taylor
Erin Taylor
Reporter

Meet Erin. Erin is a junior this year and a reporter for The Prospective. Erin is currently working on her AP art portfolio. She is planning on forming a career in art or design throughout college. After...

As the stars come falling down

Steroids in sports have become something of a regular occurrence these days.

With the recent unveiling of the link between Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez and the known source of performance-enhancing drugs, the Biogenesis clinic in Miami, and the controversy over former Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan’s possible use of steroids, these years are coming to be known as the Steroid Era.  People look forward to the next big athlete to get caught “doping.”

Some people see these enhancements as a new age in competition, where unnatural power and speed outweigh God-given talent and hard work.  PEDs are not just used to make a player stand out from the rest anymore; they are now used as levelers of a once untainted playing field.  Athletes who once worked hard to gain accolades in their respective sports now look to icons that cheated their way to the top.  They see their only road to fame is to fall into succession with these frauds.

Once-great heroes like Lance Armstrong and Manny Ramirez have fallen by the wayside because of the growing issue of steroids.  Armstrong is now banned from competitive cycling and Ramirez has been demoted to an excited Taiwanese baseball club.  Both casualties of the negative effects of synthetic enhancement, they are perfect examples of people who compromise who they are to become someone they shouldn’t be.

The use of anabolic steroids has no place in sports of any kind or at any level.  Many careers, records and accolades have been either tainted or completely destroyed by chemical abuse.  If this trend is to continue, it will surely mean the destruction of competition.  If an athlete works hard from an early age to become the best that he or she can be, that is an achievement in itself.  But, if that same athlete could be easily surpassed in half of that time by someone using illegal chemicals, where is the incentive for effort?  Achievements and records will mean nothing.  Children will look up to their idols and see an example of taking shortcuts on their road to success.

This is a problem that needs solving.  Even though steroids are illegal in professional sports, it is estimated that up to 50 percent of top-tier athletes are using steroids according to Ken Caminiti, former third basemen for the Houston Astros.  The only true solution is to have regular unwavering drug tests that cover all known enhancement substances. The penalty for failing a test would be total disbarment from professional sports.

This could possibly destroy sports for decades, causing a hard and lengthy reconstruction period.  But to deny this solution is to deny the integrity and sportsmanship of professional athletics.  It is now time to make a decision: shatter a few decades or shatter an entire era of dreams, miracles and memories.

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