Teens often look to others for guidance, help or support. Role models can be family members, celebrities or sports stars. Many young athletes look to sports’ superstars as heroes.

Reaching a goal by using steroids or other unethical or illegal means devalues the achievement.

In the past few years more star athletes have been caught in illegal actions, including gambling or taking performance-enhancing drugs. Some have been caught gambling on a specific team or implicated in throwing games, such as the case of the Chinese Olympic badminton team.

Too often athletes have been caught using steroids to help them perform at their highest level.

Lance Armstrong was recently questioned about using drugs for optimum performance. The International Cycling Union said that it will wait for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to comment on why he should lose his seven Tour de France titles and be banned for life from professional cycling after his refusal to appear before a committee investigating the charges.

Bowler Kassandra Kitigawa said, “Seeing role models, such as Lance Armstrong, cheat shows us a bad perspective of him and athletes in general. However, seeing all these athletes fall to their mistakes motivates me to be better, do better and push harder to accomplish what I can do.”

Judo athlete, Kelli-Ann Omatsu, said, “ It shows what one shouldn’t do. It affects your ability to reach out to other players and affects your reputation tremendously.”

Professional baseball players including Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds have been caught using performance- enhancing drugs, leading to their names being tarnished.

The integrity of sports and individual athletes is devalued by these scandals.

Success is not genuine if it is not honest.