Quote of the Day | March 18, 2009: The Relationship Between Pain and Sports Is Ancient and Close

From Part II of Bil Gilbert's 1969 Sports Illustrated expose on PEDs:

Among major American sports, amphetamine usage may be highest in football, or again it may only be easier to verify in this sport. Among professional clubs, players, physicians and trainers of the Steelers, Chargers, Cardinals, Lions and Redskins have indicated that chemical pep is or has been used. At least one professional football team made the taking of pep pills part of its pregame routine.

“It usually seems to be the older players and boys who think they need an extra lift to make it through a game that want them,” says Joe Kuczo, the Redskin trainer. “I personally am not convinced that they do much good, but it’s a mental thing with some of them. They’ve been used to the pills. In the quantities they get here, at least, I doubt if they do much harm.”

. . .

In addition to exhaustion and tension, all athletes are at some time in some degree challenged by a third physiological phenomenon—pain. The relationship between pain and sports is ancient and close. For some, pain is the prohibitive price that makes games not worth playing; for others it is the secret but ultimate opponent. For most it is a necessary vocational byproduct.

Tags: Bil Gilbert, Sports Illustrated, Steroids