Drug Abuse In Professional Sports

The world of sports is vast and fun for the whole family. Sports provides entertainment for everyone, from little Johnny who plays baseball, to weird uncle Phil who is an arm chair quarterback. Few realize that sports help people in ways they can't imagine. From Pakistan to the USA, people use sports to do things that may be more difficult to do in any other way. Building the self-esteem of both children and adults along with the building of social skills, bonding, making friends and other lifelong skills learned in all sports. Sports also provide a chance for children that are fatherless, motherless or both to find help healing and an opportunity for a mentor. For the purpose of research analisis, a mentor found through sports is a “sports
mentor.” Children do better in life when they have a way to express themselves and develop.

In Pakistan, there is a project led by a woman, Fatima Saleem, named “Go Girls Pakistan”. This program is fighting against terrorism enacted by ISIS and the Taliban. Fatima Saleem’s facility provides a safe place for the girls to be girls and play, and otherwise act like the children they are. This place is protected and safe, but the people of the area still have doubts of the safety. As an outreach event, the facility hosted an event for the families starting with daddy and me then going to mommy and me sports days, basically sports camps, that helped with the national problem of girls in pakistan not being girls and acting like adult women. The only goal of this facility was to give girls a safe place to be girls, as said by Saleem “Our girls deserve to enjoy a proper childhood, not just to be babysitters when they are babies themselves.” What they started to unintentionally offer was a sanctuary for all people repressed and mediators of good and reunited more than a couple of estranged families, confirmed by Saleem “We managed to revive some long-lost relationships.” If we allow it, sports can have the power to draw families closer and fix broken relationships.

Through sports, we can have guidance by coaches and other sports mentors since “Mentoring is vital in a child's upbringing”, as stated by Gary Lukrige, CEO of the Summerville Family YMCA, who has been very active in providing a wide range of athletic and non-athletic programs. One of these programs brings in high school seniors and college students to mentor and teach the younger children that attend; “Kids really look up to older kids and listen, sports have a common theme that lends to mentoring: kids want to be involved in something where they can say, 'I am part of that.'
Then if you can get them to belong to something where they're doing the right things, they are more likely to get or stay on the right track” states Lukrige . This shows a clear track to stay on a, through sports. A path that can help young kids, young adults, and young athletes make better decisions in life to come and allow them to have a safe comfortable way to express their feelings through sports. Like their slogan says, “For youth development, for healthy living and for social responsibility. Because a strong community can only be achieved when we invest in our kids, our health and our neighbors.” This is just a quick summation of what this YMCA and other athletic organizations are trying to create.

All the things stated previously are important, but eventually children will grow up and be on there own. Growing up requires mental toughness and . Stated by Mina Samuels “Over the years that followed my ‘discovery’ of running, my self-confidence grew, feeding off the accomplishments I achieved in sports” what she is showing us is that threw sports at an early age she grew essential skills. Samuels went on saying “I discovered a capacity within myself that I never knew I had. I wasn't just physically stronger than I expected, I thought of myself as a different person, as someone with more potential, broader horizons, bigger possibilities. I saw that I could push myself and take risks, not just in sports, but elsewhere, too. The competition in sports, as in life, was not with someone else, it was with myself.” This one quote, from Mina Samuels’ life, shows the rest of why sports are important to children and young adults. Sports are a tool in building and developing mental faculties such as self esteem, proving to oneself that they are capable of doing things they didn't dare think they could do. Another example why the benefits of sports outweigh the setbacks of organized athletic activities is that, they act as a gateway to something or someone you could become.

Speaking of gateways, gateway drugs and other “harder” drugs are present in athletic activities, as well.
Down sides to professional sports may not be apparent at first. That's their life choice and in some cases it's there lifes dream. But if you dig deeper you'll find that professional and college athletes often have a dark side that not everyone knows about. In a study and academic paper conducted by Claudia L. Reardon and Shane Creado called “Drug Abuse in Athletes” they found that 93% of college and professional athletes used drugs within the past year. Is this bad? Yes. Does it need to be stopped. Yes. But this isn't even close to the big picture of the problem. What if a little child found out that his favorite college or professional athlete used performance enhancing drugs? He or she might think that since their hero uses drugs that it is acceptable for them to use them, as well. It doesn't stop there either the same scenario goes for legal drugs that are just as harmful to use or be around. Some of the minor symptoms may be vomiting, ache, slurred speach, paranoia, jitters and many many more. These side effects prove that drug usage, great and small, has the potential to be a horrible effect on someone's life through sports. Sports provides comfort for some people but for others it's a cornucopia of bad decisions waiting to happen; drugs, alcohol and other poor decisions for young athletes to
make.

Although many perks come with playing sports as a child, there could potentially be negative side effects.
For instance, what if a child is running after the ball in soccer and he or she collides with another child or said child sprains their ankle trying to score a goal. This is one of the drawbacks to sports you should consider, personal injury. "Any sport can produce an overuse injury," explained Dr. Cynthia LaBella, medical director of the Institute for Sports Medicine at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Another problem with today's kids is a mental one. Sportsmen like conduct is getting to be a bigger problem, or rather the lack of sportsmanship. Sean Dailey listed some ways sportsmanship affects growth and decisions of lives. “Treat everyone with respect, Always try their best, Wear uniforms properly (dress appropriately), Be punctual” these are things that could be effected by sportsmanship and later on in life affect relationships and attitudes or actions towards
people.

As proven by sources in these articles sports could have both a positive and a negative effect on a person's life. The last article shows us that sports has an behavioral effect on your personality, like sportsmanship and other traits like that. The third article shows that sports could bring a new perspective on life and may even cause an emboldened life. The second article shows that sports could provide a safe direction for someone to go, to possibly provide guidance for safer life choices and decisions. Finally, the first article shows how sports can directly affect someone's life. To wrap up, sports have an effects on people's lives, you just have to decide for yourself whether it's a positive impact or a negative one.