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One And Done: Steroid Testing Down, But Hopefully Not Out

The Hot Corner

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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: June 7, 2008

After becoming only the third state nationally to jump into the fight against youth steroid abuse, the Florida High School Athletic Association will be discontinuing its testing policy after just one year of implementation.

The FHSAA's testing program – which cost $100,000 and was designed to test one percent of the student-athletes in six designated sports – was faulty-in-design at best.

The price tag was too slight to really commit extensive resources, and testing only one percent of these athletes statewide seems to be, needless to say, inadequate.

Despite the policy's shortcomings though, it also existed as one of the few valiant forerunners in the ever-growing battle to keep sports clean and assure kids' safety. The State of Florida stepped up – along with Texas and New Jersey – to lay the foundation of what hopefully will be an issue raised in other state legislatures in the not-so-distant future.

Given the current climate of our state's economy along with numerous cuts destined to continue slashing through budgets, now is admittedly not the greatest time to run headlong into new endeavors.

Whereas I truly believe students should start being tested nationwide, I also am a realist who subsequently realizes that these things cost real money needed for a multitude of other pressing issues.

Once the dust from our current economic tailspin settles though, the steroid issue rightfully deserves to be at the top of policy makers' agendas when it comes to interscholastic funding matters.

In general, there are plenty of people read or hear the pro-testing opinions and scoff. They hold the notion that drug testing high school kids is an enormous waste of time, money and effort. These people, I assume, clearly feel performance enhancers barely exist at the prep level at all, or they just don't care if they do.

The one's that don't think steroids are floating around high school locker rooms probably point to the 600-plus tested athletes that only resulted in one positive test. Six-hundred athletes is a drop in the Gulf when you're talking about six sports.

Additionally, can anyone actually believe that the one football player who did test positive is the only user across the entire state?

As the intensity of high school sports continues to grow and mirror that of big-time college athletics and beyond, the attractiveness and propensity to get a leg up on the competition is only going to increase proportionately.

Setting – and keeping in place – an anti-doping policy in high school can also act to deter athletes from future use by setting a precedent early on in kids' careers. Just as people are less and less likely to use other drugs later in life if abstaining from them as youths, displaying a heavy-handed, negative attitude toward performance enhancers can achieve the same preventative effect.

Instead of being reactionary and solving problems after the fact, last year's first-step, proactive approach by the legislature and the FHSAA should be encouraged instead of jeered and derided as a frivolous waste of money.

Ignoring this problem – or simply turning a blind eye to its existence as a problem – does nothing.

Sitting on the steroid issue now will just allow it to incubate and rage even stronger the next time it unglamorously hits statewide or national headlines.

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