Drugs in sports are nothing new, but recently we’ve been subject to an alarming upswing.  In just the last two weeks the following headlines have disgraced the front pages of the sports sheets:

• Manny Ramirez tested positive for a MLB-banned women’s fertility drug commonly used to boost testosterone production by steroid users.
• Jeremy Mayfield tested positive for a drug which NASCAR refuses to name; the AP reports that the drug is not a performance-enhancer, thus implying it is a narcotic or controlled substance.
• Former Buffalo Bill Bruce Smith was arrested and charged with driving under the influence.
• St. Louis Cardinals minor league pitcher Ken Maiques suspended for a violation of the minor league drug program.

And that’s not to mention Michael Phelps’s return to the pool after his bong-pipe fiasco and Alex Rodriguez’s first regular season games post his steroid revelations.  No matter what the sport, no matter what kind of drug, someone, the truth is coming out.

While all of us sports fans can only shake our heads disappointedly and grumble about the ego, greed and stupidity driving these players to illegally enhance–or in some cases–waste their god-given talents, perhaps we should be looking at matters from another perspective.  The foibles of our athletes, just like those of other celebrities, are representative of the ills in society at large.  The stage on which they occur, under tight public scrutiny of celebrity-driven media, only magnifies their specific abuses, but the root causes are everywhere.  

Case in point: the corporate greed that has brought our global financial system to its knees.

This is by no means an excuse.  What these athletes are doing is wrong by any and all measures.  I just ask, until society as a whole takes responsibility for itself and cures its attitudes, its mindsets, its motivations, are we fooling ourselves by expecting these so-called heroes to be any better?  Emblematic as they are, their failures should shed light on the issues everywhere around us, instead of causing us to ask what is wrong with these people who have everything?