N.J. Begins Testing High School Athletes for Steroids, By: Michael Benjamin

12/5/06

 New Jersey, after an executive order from former governor Richard Codey, will be the first state to test high school athletes for banned substances, starting with the 2006-2007 school year.  

According to the New Jersey State High School Athletic Association, the only athletes who will be tested are those belonging to teams that participate in statewide tournaments each year.  Sixty percent of the testing will be done in football, lacrosse, baseball, track and field and wrestling, sports that have been recorded as showing higher incidences of steroid use. 

The decision to test high school athletes comes in the wake of scandals among professional athletes for using performance-enhancing drugs, including competitive biker Floyd Landis, sprinter Justin Gatlin and NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman.

Testing will be done by Drug Free Sport, Inc., the company in charge of administering the drug testing program in the Big 12 collegiate conference as well as the collection process for Minor League Baseball. Drug Free Sport was also recently in talks with the LPGA about a contract to establish drug testing in golf.

“Codey appointed a task force to look at the steroid issue,” said Kay Hawes, the Director of Media Relations for Drug Free Sport, Inc.  Hawes believes that the governor acted after receiving recommendations from his task force about steroid use throughout the state of New Jersey. 

Hawes also mentioned that the tests conducted on the high school level in New Jersey would be slightly different than those used on the collegiate level. 

New Jersey athletes will be subject to the Strict Monitored Collection, a process in which a same-sex monitor will accompany the athlete to the restroom.  The monitor will dye the bowl water blue, ensure that the restroom stall is clean, and proceed to ask the athlete to empty his or her pockets of any possessions. 

The athlete will then enter the stall alone and proceed to deliver the specimen, which is unlike the Observer Collection Method used in the NCAA, when a hired observer from Drug Free Sport watches the specimen travel from the athlete to the beaker.

“Howard University has never had problems with steroids,” said Sports Information Director Edward Hill, Jr. “It doesn’t factor in here.” 

Other states are keeping a close eye on the performance enhancer testing policy in New Jersey. 

Recently, David Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas,  called for mandatory random testing throughout the state.  Texas has the most high school athletes out of any state in the nation with approximately 740,000. 

States such as Florida, New Mexico and Illinois are also looking to institute their drug testing initiatives. 

Dunbar High School football coach Craig Jefferies believes that steroid testing “probably will catch on.  It gives kids an opportunity to be evaluated.” Jefferies noted that the American Association of Coaches is also among the groups backing the testing plan. 

Athletic Director Ronald Vallar of Holy Cross High School  in Flushing, N.Y. agrees, and adds that testing for performance enhancers across the board on the high school is “inevitable.”

“Now that new light on high school athletes is coming out, we have to talk to these [high school] kids and make them aware that they will be tested,” says Howard University track and field coach Michael Merritt.  “I don’t mess with kids that juice.”