This month, Brent Musburger (an ABC/ESPN sports commentator) told a group of students at University of Montana that steroids work. Musburger blamed “journalism youngsters” who “got too deeply involved in something they didn’t know too much about” for the negative image steroids and doping now have. He went on to say that steroids had no place in high school, but “under the proper care and doctor’s advice, they could be used at the professional level.” (Quotes take from the Missoulian article.)
If you know me (or have been in a class with me), you know how I feel about doping in sports. In fact, anti-doping was one of the reasons I came to law school, and more specifically to Marquette. My view is that doping has no place in sport. The story of how I came to become so staunchly against doping is for another day (and perhaps a different venue), but basically involves my love for the sport of cycling and the systematic doping that plagues that sport. Suffice it to say that I take a firm stance against doping in all sports in all forms.
It probably goes without saying that I could not disagree with Musburger more. Doping, least of all in the form of anabolic steroids, has no place in sports – amateur or professional. I think all anti-doping arguments come down to two basic principles, only one of which Musburger addresses in his blanket approval of steroid use in