Kids & Steriods

Shaun Powell:

This is about the kids, they said, over and over, trying harder than Roger Clemens to sound convincing. The members of the House committee looking into steroid use in baseball pounded that theme into our brain last week at the hearing. Kids are getting bad messages about performance-enhancing drugs. Kids are being betrayed by ballplayers. Kids are being wrongly influenced by the superstars.

Well, sure, no problem there. Let's look out for all kids - yours, mine, everyone's.

But don't tell me kids are being suckered by star athletes on steroids and then condone, through silence, drug use by entertainers.

Don't send the media moral police chasing Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire, then release the Entertainment Tonight poodles on Sylvester Stallone.

Don't spend thousands of dollars examining steroid use in baseball, then feel it's not worth spending two cents checking out 50 Cent.

And please, don't suggest that kids admire pro athletes more than they do actors and singers and rappers. These entertainers impact the way our kids walk, talk, dress and behave. Yet marijuana and cocaine somehow give them credibility with a young audience bent on rebellion. And with regard to the drug of the moment, there was no outcry from Congress or the media when dozens of A-list entertainers recently were linked to getting steroids through a Long Island chiropractor.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 29, 2008 12:00 AM
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