Unlike New York, New Jersey tests for steroids, By: Jim Baumbach

NJ high school athletes are randomly tested during state championship events

July 6, 2007

If New York really was serious about testing its high school athletes for performance-enhancing drugs, the state's officials wouldn't have to look all that far for a good working model.

Last month New Jersey completed its first school year of testing its student athletes for steroids, which represents a monumental achievement. This marked the first time that any state has undergone such a widespread effort, and not surprisingly more states are following suit.

Steven Timko, the executive director of New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, said today in a telephone interview he has been fielding phone calls all year from his colleagues across the nation. He just got home from a national conference in California, and got the impression that "a lot of other states are looking very seriously into a testing program for their state."

Next year Texas and Florida are slated to start drug-testing programs of their own. Eight other states also now have legislation in place regarding the use of supplements by high school athletes, which is essentially the first step toward instituting a testing program.

So there's progress on the national scene.

Yet when it comes to the possibility of testing high school athletes for performance-enhancing drugs, New York remains in the same exact place it has been since 1989. That was the first year a bill to test athletes was introduced in the state assembly, and year after year it has constantly failed to become a law.

Now, one state over to our left, New Jersey has set the standard for steroid testing.

"We are moving forward for the 2007-2008 school year" with everything the same, Timko said. "We are receiving the same funding from the state that we received last year, which is $50,000. I'm putting $50,000 again for this year. And we'll test 500 [athletes]."

The program randomly tests athletes in all sports during all rounds of the state's championships. Some experts have criticized it for not being a totally random system, because testing only occurs during one small window of the season. But this clearly is a positive first step, and no-doubt it's a deterent to high school athletes.

Here's how it works, in Timko's words:

"First we would determine the schools that are going to be involved in the testing. We notify both of the schools and ask them to submit a roster of the student athletes who would be participating in the event that we would be testing at. They would bring the roster to the event. We would present the rosters to Drug Free Sports, which is our testing agent. They randomly select five percent of those athletes, and near the end of the game we would give the names of those athletes to the athletic directors of the schools. After the event was over, the athletic director would bring the athletes to the testing site, which we would have been to and checked out prior to the event."

Timko refused to say how many athletes tested positive this past school year, if any. But he insisted that that information will be made available in a report that they're putting together, which he expects to be ready by September.

As far as the actual process of testing the athletes, they have a system in place designed to lessen the percentage of a lab error. The student athlete's urine is split into two samples, so if the first sample tests positive they have the opportunity to double check.

If an athlete tests positive for one of the banned substances – the list can be found here – he or she is suspended from all high school sporting activities sanctioned by the state for one year, Timko said. And there is no penalty to the team, just to the individual.

Perhaps the only surprising aspect of the program is the lack of support it has generated from the area's many pro teams. With steroids such a hot topic these days on the pro sports landscape, you'd think one of the pro teams in the metropolitan area would jump at the opportunity to get their name on such a program.

Yet, when asked, Timko said funding for the testing program comes only from the state's government and from the state high school association's budget.

Studies have shown that steroids are not a huge problem among high-school athletes. But if we've learned anything from what's happened in pro sports over the last decade, it's that performance-enhancing drugs is a problem that's not going to go away easily. So it makes a whole lot of sense to drive home the point to athletes who are young and impressionable.

"We're very, very satisfied with where we are," Timko said.

Now it's time New York joins in, too.