Crime In Sports Essay, Research Paper

Intro In Law Enforcement

Paper # 1

9/19/00

Crime in Sports

Many people have grown up watching their favorite player or team since they were old enough to understand the games. Sports is a big part of peoples lives weather they want to admit it or not, it maybe watching their boy or girl at the high school level or their favorite collage or pro player. Either way fans come out to watch a group a people become a team, but after the last point is made what happens when the team leaves the locker room. Players with their intimidating size and build are more likely to commit violent crimes or suffer from drug abuse.

Two movies have been made that tell a different story of sports. Blue Chips and Varsity Blues are two movies that tell it like it is. Blue Chips is a movie about how players are given anything they wished for if they would play for a certain college basketball team. It is a true story how the coach was against buying players, but after a few losing seasons he bought into it. The alumni would buy the players’ families cars, houses, and farm equipment so the kids would come play for their college in order to get the best players. Then the alumni would then bet large amounts of money on the games certain their going to win with their perfect team. Varsity Blues is a movie in which the players of a local

football team could get away with anything. “They date cheerleaders who wear whipped cream bikinis, hang stetsons on their hard-ons when drive around naked and hope that the

coach won’t shoot them up with steroids if they sustain injuries that might kill the coach’s chances of winning another division title.” This movie was set in Texas where the football team was the focal point of the town. Playing with that kind of standard, players

knew the local cops wouldn’t touch them. Taking advantage of their situation, the players committed small offenses such as underage drinking. In some instances, illegal alcohol was even given to the players by members of the community to show appreciation for the team.

Many people wouldn’t believe that illegal take place in high school sports. Many times small communities with nothing else to look forward to, except a Friday night football game. These teams with their loyal army of fans will stop at nothing to win a game. After the game is over the Alumni will take the players out and show them a good time with a party, were under-aged drinking and drugs will take place.

Players on the collage level lead a life of lies. The buying and selling of players of college sports is strictly illegal. Players are bought with cash, cars, houses, and grades they didn’t deserve. When the collage sports become just as competitive as pro sports, the players forgot the real reason they are in college. The players got so wrapped up in the games and practice they forget about the education they were supposed to be getting. When that happen their grades will tend to fall, so the school will bump them up so the player is still eligible to play. It is difficult for me to understand how these players get their studies done,

with the game and practice schedule they have. I have trouble keeping up with my studies, and I’m not in sports or a four-year university.

More importantly is what goes on behind the scenes of pro sports. Many pro players lead a life of drugs and crime. Players who are getting paid millions of dollars playing a sport, their will become problems. With players on the road all the time during

the season have the tendency to forget about the wife and kids at home and go and have a good time. With the problems they may suffers during the games stress will build up in these players. When the players suffer too much pain or abuse the first thing they turn to is

drugs. It may start out with pain killers or muscle builders, but after a little time those pain killers are not going to be working as well as they did in the beginning. When players reach this level their egos reach a certain point and they think there above the law.

When players and organizations do illegal activities it embarrasses the town that supports it. Many fans have lost their interest in sports because of this reason. Baseball and basketball are the two sports who has really lost the respect of their fans. Fans want to open to morning paper and read about their team and be proud of them. Most of the time when fans go to read the paper in the morning they have to read about a player that has been arrested, or their organization getting fined because of illegal drugs. This is not true for every organization or player. Certain players have reach greatness with out buying into

the sports fame.

Many players are starting to use performance-enhancing drugs, such as nandrolone. Where do we draw the line in what players can, and cannot use. Drugs such as these has gotten players in trouble with different rules and regulations for different sport leagues they

play in. Openly using performance drugs Steve Vezian a professional hockey player switched his ice skates for a pair of inlines to compete in the Pan American Games, his play was governed by different rules. And he cost the Canadians a gold medal.

The testing procedures for drug abuse in sports are stringent. Doping is cheating, and contrary to the spirit of fair competition, so doping control in sports must be enforced. Stimulants, analgesics, beta-blockers, and anabolic steroids are banned substances in sports but continue to be abused because of the popular belief that drugs may now be essential if sports records, achieved with the presumed benefits of drugs, are to be broken. Drug testing has an important place in deterrence of abuse but other actions are now being enforced in an effort to suppress the market for drugs inside and outside sports.

One reason that pros use drugs so often is the perception in professional sports that it’s OK to do anything as long as you win, because that keeps the fans entertained. The fans are worried about the entertainment, and winning is one of the products that sells. How you win is a whole lot less important.

The death of Florence Griffith Joyner (“Flo-Jo”) raise many questions when she died of heart seizure at the age of 38. Even before her untimely death, the shadow of suspicion hung over her glorious two gold medals and one silver at the Seoul Olympics in 1988: with her muscular form and husky voice typical of steroid users, and with her retirement announced abruptly in 1989, when mandatory random testing for drugs was introduced, there were rumors that Flo-Jo had used performance-enhancing drugs.

With the players intimidating size and build people tend to give players more respect than they deserve. These players are supposed to be role models for the fans. Players need to learn that they have an image to uphold, so the fans can look at their team and be proud. Pro sports and many college sports focus their main reason for playing is money. They have forgotten they are playing a sport and making millions of dollars doing it. With that kind of easy job, and unreasonable amounts of money at least the players can do is respect the sports and its fans.

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