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07-03-2005, 11:54 AM
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports
July 2, 2005, 11:37PM
Here, there, everywhere?
Not in my school ...
In the wake of the growing steroid scandal, the Chronicle analyzed more than 100 articles from newspapers
across the country to research opinions and attitudes of high school coaches, administrators and players on
the severity of the problem. Despite numerous national surveys showing steroid use has doubled since the
1990s and despite the documentation of steroids-related arrests or suicides in nine states in the past three
years, many deny that steroids are a problem, especially "not in my school."
• "It's always somebody else's kid; it's always somebody else's
school. If I had $100 for every time a high school principal or
coach said to me during the past 27 years, 'Doc, it's a problem,
but not in our school,' I'd have a Ferrari sitting in my driveway."
DR. CHARLES YESALIS, Penn State University professor,
author and expert on steroids, speaking to the Chronicle
• "It seems that most schools don't think they have a problem but
(that) their neighboring districts do."
CHARLES BREITHAUPT, UIL athletic director, as quoted
in a 2002 issue of the Leaguer, the organization's newsletter
• "We asked (Oregon coaches) about the use of steroids ...
(and) their overwhelming response was, 'Not in our school.'
Interestingly, they were right on the money in correctly predicting how many kids at other schools were using
steroids. At the time, they guessed 6 percent, and our data showed between 5-6 percent. So if you don't think there
is a problem in your school, you don't think you need to do anything."
DR. LINN GOLDBERG, speaking to the Chronicle
• "You hear rumors (about kids on steroids), but the rumors you always hear are about the kids at the other schools."
DALE MORTENSEN, Oakmont (Calif.) High football coach,told the Roseville Press-Tribune with a laugh
• "I can't speak for other places in the country, but I don't perceive this to be a problem here. This is an overreaction.
Everyone hears about this stuff on the news, and it's the new hot topic."
MATTHEW BISSELL, Berkeley (Calif.) High football coach, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle
• "To be honest with you, and I could be very naive, but I don't think we have a problem here."
TAMMY SMITH, Tulsa (Okla.) Public Schools middle school athletic director, speaking to the Tulsa World
• "Despite the survey results, some coaches and athletic directors say none of their athletes uses steroids. Mesquite
ISD athletic director Mickey DeLamar said there are nonathletes walking the hallways in his district who are 'bulked
up better' than the athletes. 'You know, some of them play in the band,' Mr. DeLamar said."
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
• "I would say emphatically that the numbers you're taking off that (A&M) survey and the actual kids that I coached,
they don't go hand in hand."
MARK ELAM, Rockwall High's athletic director and former head football coach, speaking to the Dallas
Morning News
• "I work every day in a high school. I'm a cop in the school, and there are a lot of problems in school, lot of drug
problems, and steroids is not even on the radar. It is so, so, so, so low on the list. Do I think (the seven football
players arrested for alleged steroid use at Daniel Hand High in Madison, Conn.) is isolated? Yes. Absolutely."3
MIKE DEVITO, Amity football coach, speaking to the Connecticut Post
• "I really don't think steroids is that widespread. I've been coaching for 10 years. I haven't seen any signs that I can
say this kid is on steroids and that kid isn't on steroids."
JEFF ROY, Shelton (Conn.) football coach, speaking to the Connecticut Post
• "I don't think there's a huge problem. But it's definitely out there."
RICH MEAHAN, a football, wrestling and baseball star at Foran High in Milford, Conn., speaking to the
Connecticut Post in Bridgeport
• "From where I am and what I see, it's really not around at all, at least in my area."
FREDDY DEJESUS, senior catcher at McMahon High School in Norwalk, Conn., speaking to the
Connecticut Post
• "I do see some kids that may be involved (with steroids), but not necessarily here."
DAVE BRUNEY, Martins Ferry High School head football coach, speaking to the The (Wheeling, W.Va.)
Intelligencer
• "Maybe I'm naive, but I really haven't heard kids talk about it, and I haven't seen it."
WAYNE DIETZ, the baseball coach at Woodbury for 25 years, speaking to the Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer
Press
• "In my personal opinion, it's not a problem at the high school level."
MICK SCHOLL, Burnsville (Minn.) High baseball coach, speaking to the Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press
• "I think steroids are the flavor of the month."
TERRY STOGNER, athletic director and weight training instructor at Carlmont High in Belmont, Calif.,
speaking to the (San Jose) Mercury News
• "We are at the goal line about 2 percent of the time. Spending this much time on steroids would be like me
spending all of my time practicing my goal-line defense. It just doesn't make sense."
PATRICK WALSH, the football coach at Serra High in San Mateo, Calif., speaking to the San Jose Mercury
News
• "These steroids are not in the schools; it's in the health clubs. ... If I thought putting coaches through a course for
two or 24 hours would reduce or eliminate steroids, sure, I would say yes. But I don't think a lot of research says
that."
STEVE SELL, athletic director and football coach at Aragon High in San Mateo, Calif., speaking to the San
Jose Mercury News
• "I am not aware of any problems we've had in (South Carolina) with steroid use. We can't be so naive to think that
some of our athletes have not experimented with it."
ROGER HAZEL, an assistant executive director for the South Carolina High School League, speaking to The
(Columbia, S.C.) State.
Note: Nearly 7 percent of South Carolina high school boys admitted using illegal anabolic steroids on a 2003
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, slightly higher than the national average.
• "I don't think Colorado has a big steroid problem, and I hope we don't get one."
TIM OTTMANN, head football coach at Ponderosa (Colo.) High School, speaking to the Rocky Mountain
News
• "If there is evidence of a problem, we should do something about it. It's just not something that's hit the radar screen
yet."
DOUG SMITH, R-SPARTANBURG, South Carolina House speaker pro tempore, speaking to The
(Columbia, S.C.) State
• "I don't think we have a problem. We stay on top of the kids pretty good. We stay on top of them about grades
and health habits. Some of them may stray from what we tell them sometimes, but I have never seen a problem."
JOHN MCKISSICK, Summerville football coach, speaking to The (Columbia, S.C.) State
• "I don't think there is a problem, and I think jumping the gun and doing a bunch of stuff for something that's not a
problem is a big waste of time for anyone."
JOHN JONES, Spring Valley High's athletics director and boys track and cross country coach, told The
(Columbia, S.C.) State that in his 25 years at Spring Valley, he has never seen nor suspected an athlete of
using performance-enhancing drugs.
1 Yesalis first estimated in the late 1990s that 300,000 young athletes and non-athletes were usings steroids. He now
believes the number to be more than 1 million young people per day, citing a 2003 Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention survey.
... or maybe it is
Evidence of the prevalence of steroid use among young athletes in recent years:
•The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey has shown anabolic steroid use by teens has steadily
climbed since the 1980s and jumped from 2.1 percent in 1991 to 3.4 percent in 2004.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
•The biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey found the percentage of high school boys who said they used steroids rose
from 4.1 percent to 6.8 percent between 1991 and 2003.
CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
•After Ben Johnson broke the 100-meter world record at the Seoul Olympics, young athletes reported that Johnson's
use of steroids positively influenced them to use steroids in the future. Sales of the steroid precursor androstenedione,
used by Mark McGwire, quadrupled after McGwire broke baseball's home run record in 1998.
DR. LINN GOLDBERG, professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University 1
•A survey of football teams at nine schools conducted by two University of Louisiana-Lafayette professors in 1999
and 2000 revealed that 28 percent of football players used steroids.
LOUISIANA LAFAYETTE
•A 2004 survey of more than 500 California high school students conducted by a public affairs firm found more than
52 percent of boys and 33 percent of girls know someone who takes steroids or supplements.
@ISSUE CONSULTING GROUP
•A survey in 2003 by Texas A&M University found that nearly 42,000 Texas students in grades 7 through 12 (about
2.3 percent) had used steroids.
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
•Nationwide, less than 4 percent of high schools test for steroids.
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF STATE HIGH SCHOOL ASSOCIATIONS
• "What I can say for a fact is that (steroid use) is out there. Any school that thinks this couldn't happen or doesn't
happen is sticking its head in the sand. Whether we like to admit it or not, a certain percentage of kids are taking
performance-enhancing drugs."
DR. JOEL FISH, director of the Center For Sport Psychology, speaking to the Courier-Post (N.J.)
• "If coaches, parents and athletes were armed with the right information beforehand, perhaps our son (Efrain) would
still be alive. No parent should have to endure the loss of a child. Our one prayer is to prevent this from happening to
your family. ... It's now our responsibility to do something about it."
FRANK MARRERO, speaking to the California Interscholastic Federation just prior to its passing steroid
regulations that include requiring coaches to be educated in preventing and identifying steroid abuse
• "I had the kids in our area, in Plano, tell me that at least a third of the young men that are showing up on Friday night
to play football are juicing."
DON HOOTON, parent of a steroid user who committed suicide in Plano, speaking on CNN Newsnight with
Aaron Brown
• "Nobody's afraid of getting tested because they know the school can't afford it right now."
COLLEYVILLE HERITAGE HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYER, one of nine who admitted to using steroids,
speaking to the Dallas Morning News
JOHN McCLOSKEY
1 Goldberg is the co-founder of the anti-drug programs ATLAS (Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids)
and, for young women, ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives) in which young
athletes teach the curriculum to their peers with a coach's supervision. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has given
them both its highest recognition and called them model programs.
July 2, 2005, 11:37PM
Here, there, everywhere?
Not in my school ...
In the wake of the growing steroid scandal, the Chronicle analyzed more than 100 articles from newspapers
across the country to research opinions and attitudes of high school coaches, administrators and players on
the severity of the problem. Despite numerous national surveys showing steroid use has doubled since the
1990s and despite the documentation of steroids-related arrests or suicides in nine states in the past three
years, many deny that steroids are a problem, especially "not in my school."
• "It's always somebody else's kid; it's always somebody else's
school. If I had $100 for every time a high school principal or
coach said to me during the past 27 years, 'Doc, it's a problem,
but not in our school,' I'd have a Ferrari sitting in my driveway."
DR. CHARLES YESALIS, Penn State University professor,
author and expert on steroids, speaking to the Chronicle
• "It seems that most schools don't think they have a problem but
(that) their neighboring districts do."
CHARLES BREITHAUPT, UIL athletic director, as quoted
in a 2002 issue of the Leaguer, the organization's newsletter
• "We asked (Oregon coaches) about the use of steroids ...
(and) their overwhelming response was, 'Not in our school.'
Interestingly, they were right on the money in correctly predicting how many kids at other schools were using
steroids. At the time, they guessed 6 percent, and our data showed between 5-6 percent. So if you don't think there
is a problem in your school, you don't think you need to do anything."
DR. LINN GOLDBERG, speaking to the Chronicle
• "You hear rumors (about kids on steroids), but the rumors you always hear are about the kids at the other schools."
DALE MORTENSEN, Oakmont (Calif.) High football coach,told the Roseville Press-Tribune with a laugh
• "I can't speak for other places in the country, but I don't perceive this to be a problem here. This is an overreaction.
Everyone hears about this stuff on the news, and it's the new hot topic."
MATTHEW BISSELL, Berkeley (Calif.) High football coach, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle
• "To be honest with you, and I could be very naive, but I don't think we have a problem here."
TAMMY SMITH, Tulsa (Okla.) Public Schools middle school athletic director, speaking to the Tulsa World
• "Despite the survey results, some coaches and athletic directors say none of their athletes uses steroids. Mesquite
ISD athletic director Mickey DeLamar said there are nonathletes walking the hallways in his district who are 'bulked
up better' than the athletes. 'You know, some of them play in the band,' Mr. DeLamar said."
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
• "I would say emphatically that the numbers you're taking off that (A&M) survey and the actual kids that I coached,
they don't go hand in hand."
MARK ELAM, Rockwall High's athletic director and former head football coach, speaking to the Dallas
Morning News
• "I work every day in a high school. I'm a cop in the school, and there are a lot of problems in school, lot of drug
problems, and steroids is not even on the radar. It is so, so, so, so low on the list. Do I think (the seven football
players arrested for alleged steroid use at Daniel Hand High in Madison, Conn.) is isolated? Yes. Absolutely."3
MIKE DEVITO, Amity football coach, speaking to the Connecticut Post
• "I really don't think steroids is that widespread. I've been coaching for 10 years. I haven't seen any signs that I can
say this kid is on steroids and that kid isn't on steroids."
JEFF ROY, Shelton (Conn.) football coach, speaking to the Connecticut Post
• "I don't think there's a huge problem. But it's definitely out there."
RICH MEAHAN, a football, wrestling and baseball star at Foran High in Milford, Conn., speaking to the
Connecticut Post in Bridgeport
• "From where I am and what I see, it's really not around at all, at least in my area."
FREDDY DEJESUS, senior catcher at McMahon High School in Norwalk, Conn., speaking to the
Connecticut Post
• "I do see some kids that may be involved (with steroids), but not necessarily here."
DAVE BRUNEY, Martins Ferry High School head football coach, speaking to the The (Wheeling, W.Va.)
Intelligencer
• "Maybe I'm naive, but I really haven't heard kids talk about it, and I haven't seen it."
WAYNE DIETZ, the baseball coach at Woodbury for 25 years, speaking to the Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer
Press
• "In my personal opinion, it's not a problem at the high school level."
MICK SCHOLL, Burnsville (Minn.) High baseball coach, speaking to the Saint Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press
• "I think steroids are the flavor of the month."
TERRY STOGNER, athletic director and weight training instructor at Carlmont High in Belmont, Calif.,
speaking to the (San Jose) Mercury News
• "We are at the goal line about 2 percent of the time. Spending this much time on steroids would be like me
spending all of my time practicing my goal-line defense. It just doesn't make sense."
PATRICK WALSH, the football coach at Serra High in San Mateo, Calif., speaking to the San Jose Mercury
News
• "These steroids are not in the schools; it's in the health clubs. ... If I thought putting coaches through a course for
two or 24 hours would reduce or eliminate steroids, sure, I would say yes. But I don't think a lot of research says
that."
STEVE SELL, athletic director and football coach at Aragon High in San Mateo, Calif., speaking to the San
Jose Mercury News
• "I am not aware of any problems we've had in (South Carolina) with steroid use. We can't be so naive to think that
some of our athletes have not experimented with it."
ROGER HAZEL, an assistant executive director for the South Carolina High School League, speaking to The
(Columbia, S.C.) State.
Note: Nearly 7 percent of South Carolina high school boys admitted using illegal anabolic steroids on a 2003
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey, slightly higher than the national average.
• "I don't think Colorado has a big steroid problem, and I hope we don't get one."
TIM OTTMANN, head football coach at Ponderosa (Colo.) High School, speaking to the Rocky Mountain
News
• "If there is evidence of a problem, we should do something about it. It's just not something that's hit the radar screen
yet."
DOUG SMITH, R-SPARTANBURG, South Carolina House speaker pro tempore, speaking to The
(Columbia, S.C.) State
• "I don't think we have a problem. We stay on top of the kids pretty good. We stay on top of them about grades
and health habits. Some of them may stray from what we tell them sometimes, but I have never seen a problem."
JOHN MCKISSICK, Summerville football coach, speaking to The (Columbia, S.C.) State
• "I don't think there is a problem, and I think jumping the gun and doing a bunch of stuff for something that's not a
problem is a big waste of time for anyone."
JOHN JONES, Spring Valley High's athletics director and boys track and cross country coach, told The
(Columbia, S.C.) State that in his 25 years at Spring Valley, he has never seen nor suspected an athlete of
using performance-enhancing drugs.
1 Yesalis first estimated in the late 1990s that 300,000 young athletes and non-athletes were usings steroids. He now
believes the number to be more than 1 million young people per day, citing a 2003 Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention survey.
... or maybe it is
Evidence of the prevalence of steroid use among young athletes in recent years:
•The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey has shown anabolic steroid use by teens has steadily
climbed since the 1980s and jumped from 2.1 percent in 1991 to 3.4 percent in 2004.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
•The biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey found the percentage of high school boys who said they used steroids rose
from 4.1 percent to 6.8 percent between 1991 and 2003.
CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
•After Ben Johnson broke the 100-meter world record at the Seoul Olympics, young athletes reported that Johnson's
use of steroids positively influenced them to use steroids in the future. Sales of the steroid precursor androstenedione,
used by Mark McGwire, quadrupled after McGwire broke baseball's home run record in 1998.
DR. LINN GOLDBERG, professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University 1
•A survey of football teams at nine schools conducted by two University of Louisiana-Lafayette professors in 1999
and 2000 revealed that 28 percent of football players used steroids.
LOUISIANA LAFAYETTE
•A 2004 survey of more than 500 California high school students conducted by a public affairs firm found more than
52 percent of boys and 33 percent of girls know someone who takes steroids or supplements.
@ISSUE CONSULTING GROUP
•A survey in 2003 by Texas A&M University found that nearly 42,000 Texas students in grades 7 through 12 (about
2.3 percent) had used steroids.
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
•Nationwide, less than 4 percent of high schools test for steroids.
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF STATE HIGH SCHOOL ASSOCIATIONS
• "What I can say for a fact is that (steroid use) is out there. Any school that thinks this couldn't happen or doesn't
happen is sticking its head in the sand. Whether we like to admit it or not, a certain percentage of kids are taking
performance-enhancing drugs."
DR. JOEL FISH, director of the Center For Sport Psychology, speaking to the Courier-Post (N.J.)
• "If coaches, parents and athletes were armed with the right information beforehand, perhaps our son (Efrain) would
still be alive. No parent should have to endure the loss of a child. Our one prayer is to prevent this from happening to
your family. ... It's now our responsibility to do something about it."
FRANK MARRERO, speaking to the California Interscholastic Federation just prior to its passing steroid
regulations that include requiring coaches to be educated in preventing and identifying steroid abuse
• "I had the kids in our area, in Plano, tell me that at least a third of the young men that are showing up on Friday night
to play football are juicing."
DON HOOTON, parent of a steroid user who committed suicide in Plano, speaking on CNN Newsnight with
Aaron Brown
• "Nobody's afraid of getting tested because they know the school can't afford it right now."
COLLEYVILLE HERITAGE HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYER, one of nine who admitted to using steroids,
speaking to the Dallas Morning News
JOHN McCLOSKEY
1 Goldberg is the co-founder of the anti-drug programs ATLAS (Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids)
and, for young women, ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives) in which young
athletes teach the curriculum to their peers with a coach's supervision. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has given
them both its highest recognition and called them model programs.