Re: Dallas Asst Coach Suspended For Performance Enhancers
Although I don’t’ want to be the spokesman for diabetes, being that I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, I might be able to shed a little light on this.
First, I’m 32 now and I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was about 26. I knew something was wrong because I dropped 20 pounds in about a week…pretty much whizzing it away. Prior to taking insulin, I was a 6’6” 250 athlete who played both D1 football and basketball (both after switching schools). After I started to take insulin, my body began to essentially fail. Workouts were much harder and I simply couldn’t build muscle. Food, no matter how healthy, became fat. My sleep was always interrupted, I sweat at pretty much anything, my eyesight was going quick, and minor injuries seem to never heal. You see, diabetes makes things harder and insulin is only supposed to control my glucose levels to save the organs I do have from further failing. In diabetics, food essentially doesn’t get processed in the same way it does in non-diabetics. As such, it is usually stored as fat, rarely manifests itself in energy, and usually my body (especially my kidneys) have a rough time processing anything.
MY POINT – when a diabetic says, “I took ‘x’ to better my life”, you have to put it in context. In this case, Wade Wilson is a quarterback coach for an NFL team (i.e. the greatest sports league in the world). Perhaps to him, he needed something to increase his energy level to keep up with the rigors of the game. Perhaps he needed to be in better shape to function as a coach. Perhaps he thought it would help him heal quicker from minor injuries. Perhaps whatever “x” was merely leveled him out, gave him more energy, and made him feel normal. I highly doubt he was doing it to bulk up. In the same breath, diabetics know that most medicines and things we ingest hurt us because either it spikes our sugars or it creates more difficulty for our bodies to process something. For example, when I’m in pain, taking an Ibuprofen is actually something I have to seriously consider as I know it will further damage my kidneys. Therefore, usually diabetics just have to "grin and bear it" unless we want to further hurt our future. Having said that, when you are a professional athlete or in that environment, often times people think they have to do something to keep up with those around them. Athletes know the risks of taking things like steroids, but they do it because their immediate happiness outweighs their desire for a healthy future. It’s called fame and ego. Wade Wilson is probably no different, but you also never know how distressed or uncomfortable he is in his own skin because he is diabetic, and at times, I think many diabetics would prefer to eat a handful of broken glass then feel the way we do on a day-to-day basis.
Enough with the lecture. Let’s face facts though, when The Tuna was in town, no one really cared too much about their own physique when their coach looked like a bowl of pudding who smelled like burnt hair….
I’m anti-steroids in any light as it trounces on the achievements of each of our grandfathers who worked full time jobs, used inferior equipment, ate unhealthy diets, had limited exercise, built the professional sports franchises we have now and still maintained records which stand today. For people like Wade Wilson, regardless of the reason for their action, they should be fined or kicked out as appropriate simply to maintain the integrity of the game, the integrity of those who didn't CHEAT, and the image these games need to hold for impressionable youth.
Amen.
|