Saturday, October 31, 2009

Martina, Meth Isn't a Performance Enhancing Drug


The big buzz around tennis right now is the revelation that Andre Agassi spent nearly a year doing meth back in 1997. Pretty shocking since Agassi was one of the most finely tuned athletes in a grueling sport.

Fellow tennis legend Martina Navratilova isn't cool with any of this. She even compared Agassi to Roger Clemens, someone who allegedly lied about using performance enhancing drugs. Apples and oranges.

I'm not a doctor or a physical trainer, but I've never heard that "ice" was a performance enhancer. No one has attributed their gawdy stats to smoking crank. In fact, Agassi's worst professional season came during the year he says he was using.

I mean, musicians and artists can claim that the hippie lettuce and acid help them be more creative. But not one of them has ever said that the "jib" has boosted their creativity. Well, maybe a porn star ...

Yes, it is illegal ... but so is pot. If you heard that an athlete lied about smoking the weed and got caught, it would elicit jokes but no one would say that the player should be kicked out of the league. Baseball historians love to forget that half the players back in the day were either drunk or hungover during games. Should we strike them down?

Meth is a lot harsher and it did shock me to learn this information. Meth has destroyed lives, families ... even towns ... and is spreading like wildfire. But to completely condemn Agassi for his actions 12 years ago is ludicrous. Of course he's going to lie if he got caught. HE WAS A METH ADDICT AT THE TIME! What did you think he'd say?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Pretty soon Agassi will start naming names to sell his next book... it'll be like Jose Canseco all over again