Performance enhancing drugs not only harm the user, but also taint the event or game which the athlete competes in, and athletes of different levels of competition should be tested to prevent the vast amount of negatives from occurring.

This includes the Community College sporting level, as it is an area which athletes can compete to eventually transfer to bigger and better means of competition, such as four-year universities and even professional leagues.

Since athletes will be tested at the professional level and possibly at universities, how can they skate by at community colleges, essentially having the opportunity to cheat their way into these higher levels?

This isn’t necessarily stating that all community college athletes will test positive, or are even taking PEDs, and that all sports below university level are tainted.

There would be zero harm, however, in avoiding this situation from happening with easy prevention methods, such as testing athletes midway through the season.

In the past 15 years, there has been a small string of professional athletes, who were household names before the fiasco, that have later either tested positive or come out saying that they were users of performance enhancing drugs.

While this is prevalent in the sport of baseball in the likes of Barry Bonds and even Manny Ramirez during his Dodgers tenure, former professional road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong gained national attention for “doping” throughout his career.

After a long tenure of testing and eventually accusations from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Armstrong confessed in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in Jan. of 2013.

Despite these athletes losing their endorsement deals and receiving bans, PED use looks as if it is common, and necessary in order to reach a higher level of sport in multiple situations.

This could in turn lead younger athletes to believe that in order to reach their maximum potential, steroids need to become a part of their lifestyle and game plan.

The implementation of drug testing for doping and performance enhancing drugs would benefit every level of gaming, especially community colleges.

This idea should be taken seriously and definitely attempted in the future, as a cleaner game with cleaner athletes would only make for a better overall league.