IHSA stepping up efforts to halt steroid use
IHSA stepping up efforts to halt steroid use, By: Jan Dennis
August 8, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- The Illinois High School Association will ramp up educational programs to halt steroid use as it mulls possible mandatory testing of student-athletes for performance-enhancing drugs, officials said Monday.
An IHSA committee is studying whether to implement random steroid testing for high school athletes in nearly three dozen sports, already required in New Jersey under a new policy enacted late last year.
Testing in Illinois is "in the talking stages" and there is no timetable for a decision, said Scott Johnson, assistant executive director of the Bloomington-based organization.
In the meantime, the IHSA board on Monday backed stepping up educational programs aimed at steering young athletes away from steroids.
"It's our hope that by developing our new educational units on steroids, schools will have another mechanism at their disposal to help student-athletes make better choices," IHSA Assistant Executive Director Kurt Gibson said in a statement.
Steroid use, a long-running controversy in major league baseball and other professional sports, is a growing problem among high school athletes, Gibson said.
Gibson said the IHSA's educational effort will promote "that there are better, healthier and safer ways to train than by ingesting harmful and illegal substances."
In Illinois, local school districts now decide whether to test student-athletes for drugs. School officials say a growing number of districts are adopting testing policies, with some requiring random tests while others test only when there is evidence of possible drug use.
Under New Jersey's new statewide policy, all student-athletes who qualify for state championship competition are subject to random testing for steroids and a host of other banned substances including stimulants and diuretics.
Student-athletes who test positive or refuse to provide a testing sample are banned from competition for a year and are not reinstated until they complete counseling and produce a negative test result.
The IHSA board also handed out contracts Monday to host state finals in baseball, soccer and cheerleading.
Silver Cross Field in Joliet earned a five-year deal to host the Class AA boys baseball finals, which had been played in Geneva. The Joliet facility began hosting the Class A boys baseball finals this summer.
North Central College in Naperville received a second five-year contract to host the girls state soccer finals, while Bloomington's new U.S. Cellular Coliseum was handed a one-year deal for the state's second annual cheerleading finals. The first cheerleading finals were at Illinois State University in neighboring Normal
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