Don’t
This is a personal pleas to all those reading the piece on Marion Jones. Many of you will be tempted to try illegal substances. Not just steroids but marijuana, speed, downers, sniffing glue, the list is almost endless.
DON'T
Some of you will have coaches who suggest it, especially those of you who play football and are in the weight events. Some parents will suggest you give steroids a try. Oh yes, parents will do just that. A few years ago in a divorce case in Georgia, the father wanted their son to repeat the eighth grade arguing it would give the boy an extra year to grow and become a better football player. The mother, arguing their son had very good grades, wanted him to stay with his class. I don't know who won out. The point is, the father felt becoming a better football player was more important than his son's friends and his academic reputation. Being pretty familiar with the history of track and field in this nation, I know of several superb high school athletes who never competed in college due to stricter drug testing.
Today our sport is cleaner than its ever been. Very few American athletes show up on the IAAF's monthly list of drug related suspensions. Unfortunately, the two most recent, Jones and Justin Gatlin, are especially famous (infamous?) What did it gain them? Disgrace. Nothing more. Their medals must be returned, their records erased and more importantly, the stares they receive are more in contempt than in admiration.
If you have talent, rely upon it. Work harder than the other athletes. Accept your limitations. When I was a kid I wanted to be an Olympian. I had to accept the fact that no matter how hard I worked, I simply didn't have the ability. I was good, fine. I won a lot of medals, set records, won championships but my dream of wearing the uniform of my country in the Olympics would never be realized. I wasn't that good. Would I have been tempted to try and get better by using drugs? I like to think I wouldn't. Maybe I would had they been available. But one thing, I would always have known I was nothing more than a cheat.
Don't do it. Do your best, work your hardest, go to bed at night and look in the mirror and be proud of who you see staring back. Rudyard Kipling said it best in his poem "IF." Go to your library and get his book. Read the poem. You'll be a better person for it.
