Testostoboost

•February 18, 2008 • Leave a Comment

Testostoboost
Coming to your nearest health food store sometime in the future

By A.J. Russo

Maybe you’ve seen the commercial on ESPN.

Young woman (5’7” tall), muscles rippling, in a bikini, along the beach with a young male doctor (6’3” tall), abs looking like curved waves on a stormy day.

Woman:

I was underweight and it was so embarrassing. Then I tried testostoboost, America’s number one weight and muscle gain supplement and I put on 7 pounds in just three short weeks, all in my chest and hips. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention, I’m fifty-eight years old.

Man:

And I gained twenty-seven pounds of muscle in just two months. Guess how old I am? Forty-seven. Amazing, huh? And, oh yeah, two years ago I was five feet-five inches tall. Now I’m six-three … and I owe it all to testostoboost.

Thank goodness we overturned all those silly laws, years ago. You remember, when steroid and human growth hormone use by pro athletes was illegal, and spying on other teams while they practiced was unsportsmanlike.

All that anxiety experienced by Hall of Famer, Roger Clemens, and his wife, not to mention the legal fees. And what about the exorbitant amount of time Congress spent trying to find out who had taken the drugs—more time than it took the legislature to socialize medicine.

At least now, pro athletes can be responsible for their own drug use. After all, they’re just entertainers. Back in the day, you didn’t hear anyone wondering why professional wrestlers were so big. How old was Hulk Hogan when he wrestled anyway? And let’s not forget pro athletes are adults. Thankfully, we finally came to our senses and realized that these competitors should be able to decide for themselves what they do to their bodies. Smoking is still legal, right?

With training, anabolic steroids stimulate muscle tissue to grow and “bulk up”, possibly improving endurance and strength, by mimicking the effect of naturally produced testosterone. No wonder these drugs legal.

Athletes are smart enough to understand the long term effects of ‘roids, like premature hair loss, dizziness, mood swings, including anger, aggression, and depression, hallucinating, extreme feelings of mistrust or paranoia, insomnia, nausea and vomiting, trembling, high blood pressure that can damage the heart or blood vessels over time, aching joints, greater chance of injuring muscles and tendons, jaundice or yellowing of the skin; liver damage, urinary problems, increased risk of developing heart disease, stroke, impotence, sterility, and some types of cancer. And now, after years of fighting and negotiating with team owners, health related pension plans for retired pros can pay for all the post-traumatic hospitalizations and pre-mature deaths.

And remember Spy-Gate? Seems so long ago when pro teams practiced without swat teams guarding the entrances to their practice fields.

After discovering the Patriots had been spying on their opponents since Belichick took over around the turn of the century, it was obvious that regulating this undercover work was virtually impossible. Some teams have even begun to make spying part of their pre-game strategy, showing formations in pre-game and then fooling their opponents by not using them in the actual contest.

It is puzzling, however, that the incidence of steroid use and unsportsmanlike behavior has increased so dramatically among youth athletes. Since Congress has freed up so much of their time, maybe they can find time to study this problem.

Non-issue?

•January 27, 2008 • 2 Comments

Just two weeks before celebrating Martn Luther King’s birthday, the sports world was stunned by remarks about Tiger Woods.by Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman.

She was suspended for two weeks, after she said, during a telecast on Jan. 5, that young players who want to challenge Woods should “lynch him in a back alley.”

Then, as if adding fuel to the burning cross, in response to Tilghman’s comments, the cover of Golfweek Magazine displayed a photo of an empty noose with the headline “Caught in a Noose” followed by text that read “Tilghman slips up, and Golf Channel can’t wiggle free.”

Shortly after that, Dave Seanor, the editor of Golfweek, was dismissed.

Tilghman apologized for the comment. Tiger Woods, through his agent said, “it is a complete non-issue.”

And it may not be an issue. After all, we tend to scrutinize every breath whiffed through the professional sports world.

But, in celebration of Dr. King’s great legacy and message, maybe it’s time to analyze diversity in sport. After all, the sports world usually reflects what’s happening in the rest of society.

And maybe Golf is a good place to start. (Not that other sports don’t have diversity issues. Hockey and tennis, for instance, have fewer African-Americans than cheerleaders.)

African-Americans, who number one of every eight Americans, comprise about one of every 30 amateur golfers. Although Tiger Woods is in his 8th season as the superstar of the PGA Tour, he is now the only African-American on the Tour.

This might be partially explained by the fact that golf is an expensive game and there is evidence to suggest that African-Americans don’t start golf until later in life. Unfortunately, champions typically start playing in their early teens. Today’s luminaries of the PGA Tour generally grow up in families who belong to private country clubs and very few black families are members of country clubs.

Remember, it wasn’t until 1975 when the first African-American (Lee Elder) was allowed to play at the Masters Tournament at Augusta National, and 1991 when the first African-American member of Augusta National was admitted. And it was only 10 years ago that Tiger Woods became the first African-American Masters Champion.

So, when Tiger said the comments and graphics coming from Golfweek were a non-issue—to him, maybe not—to the rest of us, maybe it is an issue.

Society took another beating in 2007 courtesy of the sports world

•January 13, 2008 • 1 Comment

Happy New Year, sports fans. Below is my first column of 2008. As you can see, I’ve come up with, what I feel are the 10 most important sports stories of 2007 (in order – 10 least, 1 most important), with respect to how they have affected our society. Please comment, agree or disagree. If you disagree with the stories (or the order), tell me why, and let me know which stories you would have included and why, or prioritize the list the way you see it and why. With your help, before my next column, I will tweak the list and it will become our column, not mine. 

 

Society took another beating in 2007 courtesy of the sports world

 

By A.J. Russo, PhD.

 

Sports fans were treated to a wide variety of reality checks in 2007. Some sports personalities, events and conquests, in and out of the sports arena, left many to ponder their effects on humanity. Some took the games to a higher level where, unfortunately, this year, most lowered the bar to unimaginable lows.

 

With that said, here are my 10 most important sports stories of 2007, ranked according to affect on society.

 

10. David stuns Goliath

 

Appalachian State doesn’t even play in the top tier of college football, yet Michigan (ranked in the top 5 at the time) lost to them.

 

See – dreams can come true.

 

9. Gators Got’em

 

It was a good year to be a Gator. Florida won national championships in football and men’s basketball, the first time that’s been done by the same school in the same year.

 

8. Marion Meltdown

 

America’s most famed female track and field athlete had a precipitous fall from grace in 2007. Marion Jones pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and admitted to using steroids. She was stripped of the record five medals she won in the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

 

Can we really trust any athlete again?

 

7. Bent on Beckham

 

David Beckham’s transfer to the L.A. Galaxy got people in the United States talking about soccer. The hobbled star was injured for much of his first season, but he put his sport back into the consciousness of the American public.

 

6. Spy Gate

 

Commissioner Roger Goodell fined New England Patriot Coach Bill Belichick $500,000 (the biggest fine ever for an NFL coach), and the team $250,000, after determining New England violated league rules by videotaping defensive signals from Jets coaches in the teams’ regular-season opener. Besides the fine, the Patriots also will have to forfeit either a first-round draft choice or second- and third-round picks in the 2008 draft.

 

Proving once again that winning is everything.

 

5. African-American Pride

 

Tony Dungy became the first African-American head coach to capture the NFL’s biggest trophy, when his Colts beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI.

                                               

 

4. Round Ball Betting

 

NBA official Tim Donaghy bet on basketball games for two seasons, including ones in which he officiated. David Stern acknowledged on Oct. 25 that more than half of the 56 NBA referees violated policies about casino gambling.

 

And we thought Pete Rose was a bad boy.

 

 

3. Mitchell’s Meddling

 

Sports icons, including former Red Sox stars Roger Clemens and Mo Vaughn, allegedly cheated, while owners and union bosses looked the other way, according to the Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

 

And all this time we thought Clemens was just an energizer bunny (going and going).

 

 

2. Sick Vick

 

Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick began a 23-month jail sentence after a conviction on dogfighting charges. It also put his former team into, what seems to be, a long tailspin out.

 

1. Blemished Bonds

 

Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s home run record by hitting No. 756 on Aug. 7. After the season, Bonds was indicted on four counts of perjury and one for obstruction of justice for his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs. Many feel his record is now tainted.

 

Tainted, ya think?