Although we would like to think of sports as a world apart, a sacred preserve spared the problems that confront society, the unavoidable reality is that society's problems concern us all, leaving neither housewife nor sports he to unaffected. The news that makes the front page inevitably finds it way, in some form, to the sports page.

While athletes are subject to the rules of the game on the field, they are not above the law when they step off. In the same respect, the attitudes and behaviors that lead to success on the field are best left behind in the locker room. However, rarely does an athlete separate his or her person on the field from his or her personality off at. For that matter, rarely do any of us leave our work at the office or limit our lessons to the lecture hall.

How an athlete chooses to live his or her life is not our real concern nor any of our business. As fans, our concern should be for the fairness of the game May the grass always be green, the track last and the playing field level.

Unfortunately for our sports-oriented reverence, athletes live in the real world. They own guns and beat their wives, they crash cars and suffer from AIDS. Each of these issues has confronted the sports world in recent years, but however troubling these problems may be, the playing field has remained level.

For many athletes, sports is a way of life, brutality on the field means brutality off it, recklessness on the field means recklessness off it, but however disturbing the lifestyles of our sports heroes are away from the stadium, though they may have been hungover when they took the field, the only advantage they enjoyed was that of natural talent.

It was only a matter of time until society's drug problem became a sports problem too. It was only a matter of time until the domain of drug czars became the concern of professional sports commissioners and amateur athletic officials. And it was only a matter of time until the rules of the game could no longer protect its integrity.

The widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs corrupts sports in a way far more disturbing than any other form of cheating. Steroids have become a way of putting in what nature has left out, of changing the equation for success.

Steroids not only corrupt the sports world, they also corrupt the sensibilities of society. Hard work has been replaced by the quick fix. The process is forgotten in favor of the product.

Society's sense of right and wrong has become so distorted that a 14-year-old South African runner tested postive twice for steroid use and was suspended from competition for four years. You can add to the South African case the names of Ben Johnson, Brian Bosworth, Lyle Alzado and Katrin Krabbe, and the picture only becomes more disturbing. The carelessness of risking one's long-term health for short-term gain and the cunning used to avoid detection are not behaviors to be emulated.

Where fans had once sat happily in the stands, they now watch gold medals and world championships won on false premises. And where the rules of the game failed, the jurisdiction of the courts has come to take over.

In recent months, landmark legal decisions have been reached in American and British courts concerning the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. This summer the Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing drug tests of high school athletes. Currently, Britain is moving to establish legislation that makes possession of steroids without a prescription punishable by up to five years in jail.

For better and for worse, there are going to be radical changes in the operation of amateur and professional sports leagues. In the name of fairer competition, private lives of athletes are being opened to public scrutiny and greater legal punishment.

If team penalties and league fines don't send a clear enough message to players, then maybe high school drug tests and jail time will. Even though the institution of sports may no longer be sacred, the idea still is. The grass is still green, the track still fast. Let's hope that the scales of justice can restore balance to the playing field and make everything level again.