I remember when...
by Louis Childress

I remember a time when athletes were pure, or a least it seemed so. As a youngster I can remember being at my grandparents house, sitting there with "the men" watching Dick Allen belt out homer after homer for the Chicago White Sox. As a teenager, I recall playing in the Corliss Marching Band at pep rallies for the school Jocks whom made their on field heroics seem effortless. Going forward we've seen the 72 homers in one season. Decade after decade accomplishments have risen and records have been broken.

Now the bottom has fallen out! It's time to pay the piper. The drug enforcement agency just orchestrated one of the biggest drug bust in U.S. history. Coincidental or not, with the upcoming elections. 54 illegal labs have been shut down, along with 11 million doses of steroids seized. On the surface, it seems as though everything is fine. Justice has been served! The questions now are, "Do we really want this? Do we really want this as much as we think we do?"

The countless number of stadiums that have been built off the sweat of these roid pumping athletes and the numerous endorsement deals are at risk.

Are we, really ready to clean up sports? We need to consider if we genuinely want to go back to the old days of 30 homeruns being the large number and where a 90 to 88 point games in the NBA is common. Have we raised the bar so high, that all we want to see are superhuman performances? Just something too think about! I remember a time when athletes were pure.

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