Impact of steroids felt across high school sports

Impact of steroids felt across high school sports, C.W. Nevius

September 20, 2006

Parents know that when their kids play high school sports, there is always a meeting at the start of the season where coaches and administrators bring parents together to discuss grade-point averages and eligibility, rules of conduct and unexcused absences.

But in the last couple of years in California, there's often a meeting for something else -- steroids.

Every high school athlete must sign a pledge that he or she will not use anabolic steroids. Every coach and volunteer must complete the American Sport Education Program course on steroids. And finally, in many schools, such as Archbishop Riordan in San Francisco, parents are required to attend a meeting to discuss the use and abuse of steroids.

That's right, steroids in high school.

The state's interscholastic athletic governing board last year began requiring California's estimated 700,000 high school athletes to sign the pledge in the wake of the BALCO drug scandal centered in the Bay Area and congressional hearings over the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.

"They can't play unless they come to the meeting," says Riordan athletic director Ron Isola, who has been at the school 34 years. "And no, we wouldn't have thought of doing this five years ago."

There are several ways of looking at this. Schools are taking a preventive approach to performance-enhancing drugs; and they are finally catching up with what has been going on for years.

"I get calls from parents, coaches and family doctors," says Dr. Steven Ungerleider, a Eugene, Ore., psychologist and steroids expert who wrote the book "Faust's Gold," about the East German Olympic drug program. "In the last several years, we have seen a complete shift in the awareness level."

Rod Jones, a standout basketball player at Riordan who will be playing for the University of San Diego next year, says he hasn't heard about any kids using steroids at his school, but when he attended basketball camps, there were always players who seemed bigger and more muscular than everyone else.

"There's always a man-child," Jones says. "He's built like he is 25 (years old). You're never 100 percent sure about those guys."

There isn't any question about what has increased awareness. Performance-enhancing drugs not only have been given intense media coverage, but we are hearing the names of the professional athletes who have been involved.

"I'm a very strong supporter of how the media has done a public service in this," Ungerleider says. "The media attention and the congressional hearings have raised the dialogue, and it is now starting to trickle down to the high schools and even the middle schools. That is one of the BALCO legacies."

The question is: Now that we're aware of it, what can be done?

The meetings with families are certainly one step. Dr. Robert Napoles, a physician who specializes in internal and sports medicine, spoke to some 900 attendees at the second annual Riordan event this summer. He used the book "Game of Shadows" by Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada as a visual aid and resource for what he thinks is a growing problem.

"One of the things I did was type in 'steroids' in Google," Napoles says. "I got over 3 million hits to buy anabolic steroids. I think it just comes down to (the fact that) this is one of the other things parents have to worry about."

Napoles wasn't so interested in lecturing the parents about the ethics of using drugs to build a bigger, stronger athlete. He was more concerned about the serious long-term health problems that can crop up -- from liver disease to ripped tendons.

Education is a good step. But is it enough?

This year, New Jersey became the first state to announce that it would begin testing high school students. School officials cited statistics from the state health department showing that steroid use among New Jersey high school students had increased from 3 percent in 1995 to about 5 percent in 2001.

More recent studies show the same trend. A 2005 survey of high school students across the country by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 4.8 percent had used steroids without a doctor's prescription.

Not that anyone needs a doctor. A 2005 study by Monitoring the Future, a federally funded research organization, found that nearly 40 percent of high school seniors said steroids were "fairly easy" or "very easy" to acquire.

So shouldn't we all be testing our high school athletes? It is a good idea in concept, but the implementation isn't so simple. For starters, in the 2000-01 school year, there were 7 million high school athletes across the nation. That number has almost certainly increased.

"It is a very cost-prohibitive thing," says Don Collins, the San Francisco section commissioner for the California Interscholastic Federation. "Each test can cost as much as $200. It's not cheap."

New Jersey is hedging its bets, testing only randomly at postseason games. In fact, only about 500 of the 10,000 athletes who typically make state championships in 31 sports will be examined. And even at that, the cost is expected to be up to $100,000.

School districts, already strapped for cash, will have a tough time putting that kind of money together, especially in a state the size of California.

The sad fact is that unless money is somehow made available to schools, we can only warn parents and athletes of the risks -- and hope for the best. Those who are abusing performance-enhancing drugs are clearly gaining an advantage in sports, but that's not really the issue.

"It's ethics, fair play and a level playing field," says Ungerleider. "But at the end of the day, the real message is, this is dangerous stuff -- long term."