Students
want tests
Steroids screening OK. Local
athletes say they'd be happy to comply.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005 • By PAUL SOKOLOSKI
• The Express-Times
As the lopsided wins piled up for her
summer league track team, Chanelle Price began to notice the
growing whispers.
Those dominant victories Lehigh Valley
runners were reeling off just had to be fueled by
steroids.
"People always accuse us of doing stuff
like that," said an annoyed Price, a lightning-fast
Express-Times All-Area cross country and track and field
performer for Easton Area High School. "They just make rude
remarks, to our coaches, as we pass. We get accused all the
time."
So count Price among those in favor of
bringing steroid testing to the high school
level.
New Jersey acting Gov. Richard J. Codey
plans to do just that, and during a Tuesday meeting with
high school educators and coaches he'll support steroid
testing as his task force investigates steroid use in the
state's high schools.
"I think it's a good idea," said Alexis
Mullen, a star tennis player at North Hunterdon High School
who led the Lions to an undefeated record in the Skyland
Conference Raritan Division. "People talk about it (steroid
use), how they do it to get bigger. It'll keep kids
clean."
In August, Codey signed a law providing
more legal protection to districts that want to adopt
drug-testing programs -- and some schools in the region have
already taken advantage of it.
"My school already does random drug tests
on most of the students," Mullen said. "It really wouldn't
be anything new."
"We have the random drug testing," said
Heather Re, a field hockey and softball standout from
Hackettstown. "It's good. It makes the kids realize, 'I
could get tested.'"
Still, that threat doesn't stop kids from
wondering about the magic of steroid use -- and ignoring the
high health risks studies have proven the
performance-enhancing drug brings.
"They talk about what would happen if
they did use," Re said. "They joke about it."
"You know, sometimes you see a football
player," Phillipsburg cross country standout Matt Sheridan
said, "one year he'll be 200 (pounds), the next year he'll
be 250, all muscle. You do see that. I know there are
definitely kids at the high school level using
steroids."
Without testing, area coaches say, it's
almost impossible to tell how many.
"Maybe I'm naive," said current
Phillipsburg football coach and former Bethlehem Catholic
great Bob Stem, "but I don't think we've had that
problem."
Still, Stem would welcome a
state-mandated steroid-testing program into his locker
room.
"If it's going to keep a kid from doing
it, why not?" Stem said. "Usually, people who object to it
are people who are doing it."
Yet, some would prefer mandatory testing,
because random tests may leave some feeling singled out.
That was the case with at least one drug test at
Voorhees.
"My friend, she was really upset about
it," said Voorhees cross-country standout Katie Spratford.
"She didn't know why they'd think she had been doing
it."
If such a steroid policy were to be
enforced in Pennsylvania, "It would help my team," Price
said. "And it would keep out all the bad guys."
Steve Powell couldn't agree
more.
The renown coach who built Easton Area
High School into a national wrestling powerhouse said he's
seen examples, although very few, of opponents he suspected
may have bulked up their reputations through steroid
use.
"We've gone against kids in the (Lehigh)
Valley, who 10 years down the road aren't the same kid they
were in high school," Powell said. "They have to live with
that."
Or, like the late NFL great and admitted
steroid-user Lyle Alzado, die with it.
"By testing, I think you'd probably
eliminate kids from making that mistake," Powell
said.
Paul Sokoloski can be reached at 800-360-3601 or by e-mail
at psokoloski@express-times.com
© 2005 The Express-Times. Used with
permission.
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