Why Not Randomly Drug Test High School Athletes?

With all the commotion at the University of Waterloo and the drug problem that led to the Warriors football season being suspended for one year, there was quite a significant buzz in the high school world of sports on Monday too.

Some people who I spoke to claim there is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in high schools. When it does, people will scatter, point fingers at everyone and look puzzled.

I must have heard it said 20 times in the span of an hour from teachers, coaches and parents. They claim there is an increase in the number of high school athletes who take performance enhancing drugs -- and nothing is done to deal with the problem. Now, I don't know if that is poppycock or fact.

Apparently, the money spent on public education on this topic has had little effect. Paul Melia, from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports, said on radio on Monday that now is the time to be focussing on high schools. A fact: there is no system to randomly test high school athletes. Boards of Education don't believe kids use drugs to cheat in sports. In Ontario, schools have money to send Principals on conferences, but have to scrounge up coins to just keep school sports alive. Forget about testing for drugs.

To have finances for testing athletes, and hoping to get to the problem early, no way. Some administrators have also told me that steroid use in Toronto schools is highly exaggerated.

Athletic associations, and even OFSAA, have no rules or policies or even penalties in place on their websites to deal with students who are caught cheating by taking performance-enhancing drugs in sports. I can't believe every student that I have watched with bulging muscles and, you know what I mean, gets that strictly from training. If so, I must be from Mars.

In April of this year, Det. Constable Jerome Codrington of the Waterloo Regional Police told our sister paper in Kitchener that performance-enhancing drugs are more prevalent in schools.  So, I would assume a bigger city like Toronto just might have a problem.

Should kids be signing a pledge to not use steroids at the start of a school sports year?

I think so.

Should teachers and coaches and administrators, at the pre-season meeting for school sports teams, clearly articulate anti-drug use in sports along with messages about penalties, behaviour, practices and rules of eligiblity?

I think so.

Should every Board of Education, sports group, athletic association and even OFSAA have received a kick in the butt, after the Waterloo scandal broke, to finally get serious about this problem rather than put it off and focus more on the up-coming summer recess?

I think so.

High schools need to produce policies and rules to deal with students who cheat. They need to have penalties prepared and clearly communicated too. Students who use steroids and human growth hormone to give them an advantage over others need to be booted off teams and sent to proper authorities for assistance -- before they start asking questions about heart attacks, diabetes and more.

Comments

[Joanne]

Great topic. Everyone is talking about universities but you're the only one to hit the nail on the head. Clean up the high school problem is a huge start. Getting OFSAA to do anything meaningful requires work and sincerity which they lack. Dump OFSAA and put an organiztaion in place with credibility and accountability.

[N.N.]

Schools lack the balls to take a stand on such an important subject and will blame excuses on lack of money.

[Mr. Adams]

Anyone wager to guess what the excuse will be and how much money it will cost us taxpayers for the next investigation when some kid in a high school is found taking an illegal substance?

[Steve]

I was waiting to see how long it would be before you raised this and am glad you did. Only one problem, the people running Boards of Education and OFSAA remind me of the story of the three blind mice.

[memphis]

Dream on... It will never happen. Never, ever, absolutely 0 chance. Nice try to start some controversy now move on. Next topic.

[Arnie]

As a parent, I think it is time for the schools to get serious about this problem before a kid dies.

[P. Morris]

The naive people amongst us is disgusting because I can't believe people actually think high school athletes take any form of drug other than the ones for headaches. Give it up folks, these kids are cleaner than Mr. Clean.

[J M]

Joanne, I disagree. It requires funding to put testing in place. If that is not present, then the administration kind of has its hands tied? I do not disagree that this is the start of the problem, in high schools. Who pays becomes the question? The system currently in place at the CIS level shows how inadequate the current system is. Please remember it was a police investigation on another matter that led to the discovery of the mess at Waterloo!

[Mr. Blake]

It's people like Memphis that show the real problem in our society. Kids cheat. No testing in place. Some coaches, and Memphis might be one of them, close their eyes because winning is more important than the health of a vulnerable teenager.

[F and M]

Clamp down in high schools now and set standards. Thumbs down on people who says there is no problem in the school system. Thumbs down to the school boards and OFSAA who are blind on this. Thumbs down on people who pass up the opportunity to do the right thing and clean this up for good.

[T.G.]

As a teacher, a volunteer coach and a concerned person, I agree with a need to get something in place quickly.
Why is OFSAA so quiet?
I know, that organization is too busy praising itself.

[memphis]

It's people like Memphis that show the real problem in our society. Kids cheat. No testing in place. Some coaches, and Memphis might be one of them, close their eyes because winning is more important than the health of a vulnerable teenager.

I never said any of these things! But as a teacher and coach, parents threaten lawsuits when johnny and sally can't get into a certain English class or when their daughter is told she can't play on the boys team. Can't wait to see what school board is first in announcing they'll be drug testing student/athletes! How about testing the average student who gets high at lunch. FYI It happens every day in every school.

[Big Al]

Reading some of the commentary on this site, it might be a good idea to drug test the coaches, parents, teachers and others - before the kids.

[Al Northcott]

Education is the first and most important step. The short and long term effects of steroid use must be presented in a way that students can interact and discuss their thoughts.Statistics show that the greatest number of teens that take steroids do so to enhance their appearance rather than for athletic performance.
Since the post 1988 fall out and the Dubin Inquiry, Ontario High Schools have included teaching about steroid use in their health programs.
In fact OFSAA produced and distributed a very comprehensive document on
The Use of Performance and Appearance Enhancing Drugs to all Ontario High Schools.

[Pepper]

If Al Northcott is correct, my school never received anything from OFSAA.
When did OFSAA produce a package or was it something another organization did and they just passed along. Regardless, why isn't it on the OFSAA website?
OFSAA has no policy in place for schools or athletic associations on how to deal with kids cheating.
There are no guidelines for coaches.
I can't find anything.
And, Mr. Northcott, not evey high school has included an in-depth teaching package in health programs. If they did, is it helping?
We all no the answer.

[Raymond]

Education doesn't work. We're waisting time, money and fooling ourselves. Taking some of the government money devoted to posters and boosting their PR machines and use it towards random testing. I agree with Mr. Grossman. Catch the cheaters and suspend them from school sports. I*f an investigation determines that the teacher or coach knew, suspend them as well. Time to cut the nonsense and get serious. Saving one student from repeated stupidity and maybe his or her life is worth it.

[memphis]

This is a fight between a mouse and an elephant. Do you all really think OFSAA has the power/authority to drug test Ontario students? Maybe if we were living in some sort of totalitarian state. This is Canada, we have rights and freedoms. The ministry of education and the school boards couldn't afford the 1000s of law suits that would follow the attempts to drug test young athletes. To think that that the majority of high school kids are using performance enhancement drugs is ridiculous. Start coaching instead of posting and you see first hand 99% of high school kids are doing it the right way.

[Lucas]

You have lost it Memphis.
Universities are testing, other sports are testing. Are you afraid that maybe someone you know is taking some substance? God help us if you're in education or coaching. There are rights. yes. There are also the right way to do things. Cheating is not one. Turning your eyes to a serious problem is a serious mistake.

[Jordan]

Message to Memphis...get serious buddy.
Nobody, at least in the threads I have read above, make any reference to the majority of high school kids using performance enhancing drugs.

[Mr. Parkinson]

You raise a very good point. I agree with you and believe sending a strong message is needed. It's time to randomnly test a high school player and, if caught, suspend him from sports for the rest of his high school days.

[chris starkey]

I would be interested to hear about the drug testing procedures currently present in the various sports organizations for elite high school-aged athletes. If athletes (who are in high school) are getting tested via their various provincial sports bodies (and playing at a much-higher level than high school sports), then we can start the debate. Until then, it is a further waste of taxpayer money.

[MEMPHIS]

Obviously none of you are in education otherwise you'd be laughing at the board like I am. You have no clue. In this country you will NEVER see high school students drug tested. But keep up the discussion, it's summer time everything else is in re-run.

[Michael Hill]

If you follow the so-called logic of Chris Starkey, it's sit back and do nothing because our tax dollars would be wasted. Well, my dollars are being wasted on many other ridiculous things going on - including things in the educational field. I certainly wouldn't want to see my son playing against a stack of beefed up steroid kids - simply because Chris Starkey is waiting for someone else to take the lead.

[Teacher Coach]

Come on people, are there so many naive individuals that they can't think out of the box. High school kids take steroids, maybe not thousands of them, but coaches who say "no way" are fools.
The worst thing to do is close your eyes. Saving the life of a youngster, getting him or her off illegal growth hormones and anabolic steroids, should be important to everyone.
Enough of the nonsense. It's time to get serious. There are plenty of corporations and government funds to test kids, not everyone, but certainly get the warning out rather than sit back and look stupid.

[Big Al]

Taking the sarcastic attitude of not drug-testing high school athletes is worse than catching a kid on steroids. Very disappointed that Memphis appears to be someone in education and lowers my expectations of the professionalsim and attitude of this teacher. I guess there is always a rotten apple in every basket.