Off the Juice: A multi-million dollar program is randomly testing high school athletes for steroids, but does it justify its cost?
Story by John David
Off the Juice: A multi-million dollar program is randomly testing high school athletes for steroids, but does it justify its cost?
Posted September 3, 2008
By John David
Bonds. McGwire. Conseco. Sosa. Though these names may forever be linked to alleged steroid abuses, it’s not to say performance-enhancing drugs are limited to professional athletes. The urge for that extra leg up permeates all competition levels – including high school, where kids face increasingly tough pressures to win.
"Someone is always looking to get ahead. Drugs will always be part of the culture,” former NFL star Haywood Jeffries said. “It's sad, but now it's just a fact of the game."
Part of the game or not, the idea doesn’t sit well with Texas’ elected leaders. In an effort to discourage and deter such drugs throughout the state’s public schools, Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring mandatory random steroid drug tests. They even approved $3 million to fund the tests, which ran from February through May of this year.
“This is something the people have been calling for, and we’ve never been opposed. We just needed the funding,” University Interscholastic League (UIL) athletic director Charles Breithaupt told the Austin American-Statesman.
But the program isn’t a slam dunk. Out of the 10,117 athletes tested, only two tested positive. Four more came back inconclusive, and 22 more were considered positive by means of a policy that addresses absences and those who refuse the test. The low results have fueled a counter movement, including accusations of political jockeying and irresponsible public spending.
Popular local columnist David Flores wrote in the San Antonio Express-News, "This frenzy by Dewhurst and the Legislature to test high school athletes for steroids has been little more than shameless grandstanding from the get-go." Catching two students after spending $3 million doesn’t justify the costs, he says. “Railing against steroids is a lot sexier than tackling the inequities in our public school system or finding funds for much needed programs that benefits students and teachers… Here's a novel idea: Let's take the $3 million we're spending on steroid testing and invest in academics."
Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, calls the program a “feel-good” program, and a waste of taxpayer money.
But program champions like Dewhurst say the program shouldn’t be evaluated based on positive results, but instead on the number of student athletes who never take steroids.
Because this is such a hot-button issue, nearly everyone we contacted for this story declined to go on the record. But one parent of a student who graduated this past May mused, “It’s not something anyone wants to talk about. My son never mentioned it, and (he) was not tested. Although the threat was always there, and (it was) real.”
Still some say the plan’s exclusivity to athletics mares other - and perhaps more rampant - drugs like marijuana and alcohol. Some say these substances are rarely tested for and are completely ignored by the new program.
Adding more fuel to the fire has been the recent criticisms of drug testing by Donald A. Berry, head of the Division of Quantitative Sciences at Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center. Although speaking of the Olympics, he points out "shaky science" that causes everyone to take notice of drug testing. Berry said anti-doping agencies engage in science so "weak" it's almost impossible to tell if the results are even accurate.
Still, more than 35,000 athletes are expected to be tested this fall. And while some say the program doesn’t justify its costs, others argue that if so much as one life is saved, the efforts will have been worth it. Either way, this lightning rod of an issue isn’t going away quietly.
