Brent Musburger: Steroids work

by Eric Schwartz Brent Musburger: Steroids work thumbnail

(Grinding My Gears writer Eric Schwartz will be getting married on October 9th and because of this he will be forced to smile much more than he would like to. The only way for this to be plausible  is for him to unleash on all that is wrong in the World of Sports over the next 10 days. This is Part 8 of 10 straight days of Grinding My Gears.)

For as much as I have shared my distaste for certain announcers in this blog, there are many voices in sports that I admire and respect.

One of them is Brent Musburger. Correction: One of them was Brent Musburger.

The voice of college football on ABC and ESPN made waves Wednesday night when he told a group of college journalism students that professional athletes under a doctor’s supervision could potentially use steroids to improve performance. Just so you don’t think his words got twisted, here are the quotes from The Missoulian, a newspaper at the University of Montana.

“Here’s the truth about steroids: They work.”
Wow, where to begin. First off, it was nice knowing you Brent, because there is no way ABC can find away to justify allowing this man to ever speak again on television. Ever.  I mean, ‘What do doctors actually think about steroids?’ I don’t know Brent, maybe they think their are terrible for the body. Check any medical publication and you will find reports demonstrating the harmful things steroids can do. These aren’t just stories made up by “young journalists.’ They are reports from doctors and respected people in the medical field.

“I’ve had somebody say that, you know, steroids should be banned because they’re not healthy for you. Let’s go find out. What do the doctors actually think about anabolic steroids and the use by athletes? Don’t have a preconceived notion that this is right or this is wrong.”

Musburger said negative stories about steroids are mainly the fault of “journalism youngsters out there covering sports (who) got too deeply involved in something they didn’t know too much about.”

Even if Musburger is naive enough to believe this, how does he not know enough after all his years in broadcasting to keep those comments away from the media?

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I would expect to see Musburger pull back those comments in the next day or two in an attempt to save his job and his reputation. He may say he was misquoted or taken out of context. Either way it won’t be enough.

It’s hard to believe a man who spent his career painting beautiful pictures with his wors will be remembered most for being the guy who told a group of college kids “steroids work.”

  • Share this on Facebook
  • Post this to MySpace
  • Tweet This!
  • Share this on Technorati
  • Share this on del.icio.us
  • Digg this!
  • Share this on Reddit
  • Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon
  • Buzz up!
  • Blog this on Blogger
Filed Under Grinding My Gears

Comments

Got something to say?