Deviance: Will We Ever Be Without It?

Will deviant behavior ever cease to exist in the world of sports?  Are the current consequences enough for deviant behavior tough enough to deter it from happening? Do sports teams do enough to try and prevent it? Like in most sport organizations, deviant behavior also exists in the NCAA. No matter how hard the NCAA tries to prevent this deviant behavior in sport, it will continue for years to come; it is simply human nature.  In American Sport in the 21^st Century we defined deviance as an act/person that differs from the norm, especially behavior or attitudes that differ from acceptable social standards.  The article I found about deviance in sport discusses drug use and how the NCAA needs to do more to prevent this. In class we went over how the NCAA takes measures to combat drug use by making players lose a season of competition if they test positive for drug use. The biggest problem with this idea is discussed in the beginning of the article when Sharon Terlep points out that some schools such as Vanderbilt aren’t required to share their drug testing policies with the NCAA. How are they supposed to ban a player if they have no record of whether or not the players are doing drugs? We also talked about how the NCAA has mandatory random drug tests. The article elaborates more on these random drug tests. For example, the University of Georgia was tested this year. Guess how many of their athletes got tested? There are roughly 650 student-athletes and only about 35 got tested. This definitely proves that their drug testing polices aren’t really effective. If a school is going to drug test then all athletes should be tested; testing only 5% of the athletes is never going to deter the use of drugs for those athletes who want to use them. The article also reiterates what we discussed in class; that the best way to stop drug use in sports is to send a message that drug use is bad to young athletes long before they enter collegiate sports. When a player gets caught doing drugs or tests positive in college athletics, its sends a bad message to youth players. Deviance in sport will never go away; deviance is part of human nature, but the NCAA needs to attempt to combat and figure out new ways to prevent it better than they are now.

Article discussed in blog post:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ncaas-drug-problem-1426792929

NCAA drug testing policies:

http://www.ncaa.org/health-and-safety/policy/drug-testing