Terry Bradshaw isn’t very good with predictions. Last year, he picked against the New York Giants in each and every one of their playoff victories. But people don’t watch Bradshaw because they think he is some kind of football guru. People watch him because he is entertaining.
On Tuesday, Terry’s predictions failed him once again. He told ESPN that he did not expect the kind of uproar that was caused by his predictions on The Dan Patrick Show on Monday, when he admitted that he used steroids.
In an effort to explain himself, Bradshaw commented, “My use of steroids from a doctor was to speed up an injury, and I thought nothing of it.” He went on to note, “It was not to get bigger and stronger and faster.”
Unfortunately for Bradshaw, that excuse sounds awfully familiar. Andy Pettitte also claimed that he used performance enhancers to recover from an injury, so the public has not been unforgiving to Bradshaw. But at least he didn’t misremember like Roger Clemens.
Bradshaw may not be the brightest light that ever shined, but he is not a bad guy. The four-time Super Bowl winner had a magnificent career, and his accomplishments should not be diminished because he took medications that team doctors prescribed to him.
In the time that Bradshaw played, doctors would do anything to keep their players on the field. There was no such thing as a concussion. If a guy came off the field and didn’t know where he was, he “got his bell rung.” He would walk over to the water cooler, grab something to drink, and get back into the huddle.
Likewise, if a player injured himself, he was not coddled by doctors. He was rushed back to the playing field with shots and medications.
When Bradshaw injured his elbow, doctors wanted to get him back onto the field. And in an effort to do so, he was given steroids by team doctors. The extent of his steroid use was to recover from an injury.
In 2008, steroids and HGH have turned professional sports into a witch-hunt, in which no athlete is safe.
Anytime Alex Rodriguez sends a ball into the upper-deck, eyebrows are raised. Anytime a wide receiver comes back from the offseason with ten more pounds of muscle, people begin to whisper.
Steroids have done horrible things to sports. They have hurt athletes, ruined reputations, destroyed role models, and shattered hallowed records. But worst of all, they have caused fans to become skeptics. They have turned accusations into condemnations. And they have given innocent men like Terry Bradshaw a bad name.
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