NFL message: Stay away from steroids, By: Jim Thomas
August 5, 2006
CANTON - Pro Football Hall of Famer Anthony Muñoz said one of his friends once had a hard time convincing a group of guys that Muñoz was not on performance-enhancing drugs.
“I busted it in the weight room year-round,” said Muñoz, who stood 6-foot-6 and weighed 280 pounds as a player. “But that’s the perception.
“We were at the training facility five days a week, lifting and running. We are an example. We can let people know we can do it, and do it right.”
Muñoz spoke Friday to a panel of youth and high school football coaches and administrators attending the National Football League Youth Football Summit at Kent State University Stark Campus Professional Education and Conference Center.
Steroids talk is more the rage in public now than in the 1980s, when the discussion about Muñoz took place. It is prevalent in many sports, such as track and field and cycling, and used by men, women and, yes, teenagers, said Dr. Linn Goldberg, co-founder of the Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids program.
“In 1993, one of 45 high-school-age students were involved with anabolic steroids,” Goldberg said, citing a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. “By the years 2003 to 2005, it was one in 16.”
Goldberg’s message to the Youth Summit was that drugs — including anabolic steroids, supplements and other performance-enhancers — are being ingested and injected in stunning quantities by a growing legion of young fans.
He cited the primary reasons young males do steroids and other drugs are the high from risky behavior, impulsivity, body image and the media. Goldberg showed slides of television ads comparing one product to another that was “on steroids.” The supposition was that the one “on steroids” was bigger, faster and more powerful, hence in a favorable light to the target audience.
Goldberg said that his research at ATLAS has proven that drug testing, informational pamphlets, even coaches’ talks have not been enough to dissuade high schoolers from not taking performance enhancers. It’s even been shown that telling teenagers the side effects has encouraged some to take performance-enhancers, he said.
There is some hope. High schools utilizing the ATLAS program show new substance abusers and new anabolic steroid users decline by 50 percent compared to the test group, and that 24 percent of the students drink and drive less, while boasting improved nutrition.
“The only thing that works is education,” Goldberg said.
Coaches acting as a responsible role model can help, too.
Former All-Pro running back/receiver/return man Terry Metcalf has been a high school coach for 17 years. He said Friday that his response to those who ask about steroids is simple: They don’t work.
“If you run a 5.1 40 (time), steroids can’t make you run a 4.7,” Metcalf said. “You are either that fast, or you’re not.
“You can get bigger and stronger by eating the right things, by doing the work. Steroids? I’m not sticking any needles anywhere in my body.”
The pros’ message? Increase strength naturally for a natural life.
