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Steroids In School /
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Performance Enhancers not just a pro sports problem
Performance Enhancers not just a pro sports problem, By: Keith Framer
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Everything, high school coaches realize, trickles down to them from the professional and college levels. It could be hairstyles, touchdown celebrations and even performance enhancing drugs.
The last three years have seen a rise in action taken against illegal drugs such as steroids, to popular over-the-counter boosters such as Creatine.
Most coaches agree that steroids and Creatine — a powder mixed with water that is marketed to speed up muscle recovery time — aren’t rampant, or even popular on the prep level in South Carolina. But figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show steroid use doubled among high school students nationwide from 1991-2003. More than 15,000 youths were surveyed in the study, which concluded that 6 percent admitted trying steroid pills or injections.
Several area coaches interviewed would prefer drug testing of athletes if it could be mandated statewide at an affordable cost.
“We need to do something,” Wren football coach Mickey Moss said. “We’re going to start losing some kids if we don’t clamp down on some things.”
Loreto Jackson, a Clemson University exercise physiologist, said she believes the spike is due to the increasing pressure to excel, to stand out from peers, and the allure of success and adoration the country displays for its athletes.
“I also believe that because our children are used to immediate results — text messaging, (instant messaging), video games — they expect this ‘synchronicity’ in all aspects of their lives, to send a message and it will be answered immediately, take a pill and you will be big and strong,” Jackson said. “(They) are enticed by the rapid results achieved through steroids. They may be unwilling to put the time and effort into strength training and nutritional programs which give better results, albeit more slowly.”
Perhaps more alarming data comes from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which measured the access to steroids by middle school and high school students. That study reported that 18.1 percent of eighth graders, 29.7 percent of high school sophomores, and 39.7 percent of seniors said obtaining steroids was “fairly easy” or “very easy.”
Those statistics made their way to the Oval Office and led President George W. Bush to address the drugs and steroids problems in his 2004 State of the Union speech. Realizing the trickle-down effect, Bush called on professional team owners, union representatives, coaches and players to send the first message to get rid of steroids.
“The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous,” Bush said. “And it sends the wrong message — that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character.”
Jerome Singleton, the executive director of the S.C. High School League, said he doesn’t think steroids are a problem in this state, but he said the league would be naďve not to think students aren’t at least trying performance enhancers simply because of the easy access.
“With everything being right at your finger tips as far as exposure, the media brings the world right to you,” Singleton said. “We don’t have our heads in the ground that it’s not here. If it’s in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, we’d be foolish to think it’s not here.”
There are several reasons teenagers look into and experiment with muscle enhancers, performance boosters, and even weight loss drugs. The most popular sports believed to foster performance enhancing behavior are football, baseball, track and field, wrestling, and lacrosse.
The reasons for experimentation are understandable, but the users often lack education about side effects — they just want results.
“Pressure from coaches, pressure from losing your position, pressure from wanting to go to college,” T.L. Hanna senior linebacker Aaron Parker said. “That’s a lot of pressure on guys who know they have to get a scholarship just to go to school, so they try to make themselves better to get to the next level.”
Some say underclassmen have a greater chance in trying these products because they want an extra boost to make the team, or to get promoted from junior varsity to varsity.
Paul Farmer, a senior offensive lineman at Westside, said he was one of those underclassmen who wondered if he could get an extra boost.
“They want to get better, they want to get bigger and stronger and see that as an easy way out,” Farmer said. “For one, it’s an unfair advantage, and two, it’s not really healthy. I thought about taking Creatine when I was in the 10th grade, but I decided not to, partly because my mom’s a nurse and she knows more about it than I do and the effects and chemicals. She said, ‘it’s not a good thing for your body,’ and if it’s not a good thing for your body, it can’t really help you.”
Others hope the lift will push them into the starting lineup. But coaches and players who have heard about or seen players using these enhancers have said that the users think popping pills or mixing a powdery cocktail will give them a shortcut around lifting weights or running sprints.
“The best advice I’ve always gotten is you eat your momma’s cooking and you commit to the weight room,” Moss said.
T.L. Hanna football coach Scott Parker said he advises his players to simply stay off the performance-enhancers and to focus more on nutrition, which better helps growing bodies develop to their capabilities.
“You push it beyond those limits and you’re asking for injuries and chronic diseases or chronic illnesses as you get older,” Parker said. “Any and all kids are looking for the break, but I don’t know if they’re looking for the drug break.”
Parker coached college football for 10 years before coming to Hanna eight years ago. The popularity of performance-enhancing drugs has dropped off, he said, since he was a college coach and masking drugs were popular. When Parker was in high school at Gaffney, he said the steroid Dinabol was still legal and rampant across the state.
It’s commonplace in schools that any medication, even an aspirin for a headache, has to be accompanied by a parent’s signature witnessed by a school nurse or trainer.
Westside senior quarterback D.J. Fredericks said the only bottles he sees in lockers are Advil for pain and potassium pills for cramps.
TESTING COSTS ARE ‘ASTRONOMICAL’
One avenue to root out the problem is random testing of high school athletes at state championship venues. New Jersey first announced the idea in May when the state said it would be the first to test about 5 percent of the 10,000 high school athletes who are in state tournaments.
The tests are to be conducted by Drug Free Sport, Inc., a Kansas City, Mo. firm that runs tests for college athletes and minor league baseball.
The cost of those tests, however, are the main reason why testing hasn’t spread across the country — yet. About 500 tests will be administered at $175 each, and the bill will be divided between the state sports association and the state government.
New Jersey plans to test for 80 banned substances including anabolic steroids, diuretics, and other performance enhancers. The penalty will be a one-year loss of eligibility.
The issue of testing has also picked up in Texas, where Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst called for it in October as he ran for re-election. In 2005, Texas state lawmakers considered a testing program, but instead directed the University Interscholastic League to develop an education plan about steroid dangers.
In Florida, Minnesota, and Michigan, lawmakers are considering bills to establish new laws and policies to curb steroid use.
South Carolina, so far, has preferred an education plan similar to the one in Texas.
“We try to educate the public of the effects, that would be more lasting than the testing,” said Singleton, the SCHSL executive director. “We were led to believe it was a tremendous cost (to test). Do you mandate it? Who does it? How often? We just knew that the cost was high to conduct and to even set it up statewide. We’re trying to attack it on the other end and provide education.”
Singleton, said the league tries to educate its member schools, and that the National Federation of State High School Associations has a compact disc and other information to discourage steroid use.
Along with the cost, Singleton also said that it’s difficult to develop a list of banned substances especially when factoring in over-the-counter substances.
Ultimately, Singleton said, the coaches and parents closest to the athletes could likely tell if a student has taken anything, which might cause changes in behavior or even mood swings.
“You can pick up on it very quickly if they’re doing anything they shouldn’t be doing,” Parker said. “I think moms and dads are very aware of what their children are doing in regards to that too. The (school) I’m at, I’m very confident parents are aware of what their kids are doing, and we would see it also.”
Westside football coach Ted Luckadoo said sudden muscle changes are easily identified because all schools monitor weight room workout schedules.
“We feel like if a kid has gotten bigger for us, then he’s worked at it,” Luckadoo said. “He’s worked in the weight room, and I can probably show you the results from the time he’s been in there and improvements he’s made, and he’s worked at it.
“If some kid comes to us and we haven’t seen him, and all of a sudden three months later he’s gained 20 pounds, something’s up. Kids are going to normally grow if they eat right and exercise and rest.”
Parker said he wouldn’t have a problem with testing as long as it is mandated across the state, and if the state funds it. But he also realizes that’s all but impossible.
“They can’t do it, it costs too much,” Parker said. “The burden with trying to do it on the high school level, we couldn’t afford it, it’s astronomical. Is it a good thing? Yeah, in thought it’s a great thing. But is it feasible? No.”
PRESSURE TO ‘LOOK GOOD’
Robin Kowalski, a psychologist at Clemson University, said high school athletes generally get pressure to perform from three areas: peers, coaches, and parents. And many times, the coaches and parents want the athlete to perform at such a high level, the athlete is pressured to figure out any means necessary to reach that level.
Kowalski also noted that since college tuition costs rise each year, parents also add pressure to their children to gain that athletic scholarship.
“Wow, if you can get an athletic scholarship,” she said, echoing the parents’ words. “Whatever you need to do to get that.”
People of all ages have an innate need to belong, to be connected to others, and be accepted by them, Kowalski said. But with teenagers, that need is even more pronounced, she said, because if the athletes fail, they risk being ostracized by their peers. Yet if they succeed, they can easily gain the acceptance of the their peers, their parents, and their peers’ parents.
That’s where performance-enhancing drugs enter the picture because teenagers are searching for that avenue to acceptance.
“There is a huge self-presentational element to this, along with many other negative health behaviors in which people engage,” Kowalski said. “There is such an enormous pressure on athletes to perform that they are willing to compromise their health in order to ‘look good’ whether that be assessed in terms of performance, appearance, you name it.”
That drive for acceptance also could bypass the law, especially since athletes likely have access to drugs, mainly through the Internet, that can lift them to that needed performance level. And Kowalski said most parents don’t keep track of what is available to their children.
“I’m not sure how many parents really sit down and think, parents know there are some kids that use them, but it’s certainly not their kids,” she said. “They have no idea what is going on with their kids, they think they do, but there’s a huge discrepancy with what they think they know and what the kids are actually doing.”
NUTRITION OVER SUPPLEMENTS
Jackson, the Clemson exercise physiologist, is on the NCAA’s list of approved speakers available to NCAA institutions for which the governing body will provide partial funding for the school’s speaking fee.
She has spoken at schools in North Carolina and South Carolina, and spoke last summer at the S.C. Athletic Trainers Association convention. Her specialty is “performance nutrition” in regards to food and drinks’ enhancing qualities. Jackson touches briefly on supplements particularly if the school requests her to, but she never encourages them.
“Even for the supposedly ‘safe’ supplements, I discuss pros and cons letting individuals make their own decision (and) reminding them they are ultimately responsible for what they ingest, what are the risks worth to them,” she said. “I am a huge believer in the fact that food and water, the right amount of the right food at the right time, are the most important supplements.”
This instant gratification generation, as Jackson calls it, often loses sight of the old-fashioned fruits and vegetable diet, in place of powders and pills, which combined with a balance of exercise and rest, gives the same results.
“If we can somehow figure out how to get that message across to have the proper nutrition to get your bones and muscles to grow. If I can get them to buy into some very simple facets, it works and it’s safe and it’s legal,” she said. “We just don’t take the impact of nutrition seriously because it’s not very ‘sexy.’ It’s not viewed as a sports-related topic where supplements are and performance-enhancers are,” Jackson said.
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