By Andrew Dreischarf The Independent
It was late Monday, Jan. 14, when it was announced that the Illinois High School Association had voted to start random drug testing for all high school athletes in fall 2008. I was in my bed trying to get some sleep when I heard the report on the radio. I thought to myself, “Hey, this time the IHSA got it right.”
Illinois becomes the fourth state along with New Jersey, Florida and Texas, to use random drug testing during the post season of every sport at every class level. The idea is to catch those who are cheating and to keep sports more fair and clean.
When there are so many questionable things being thrown around about the IHSA — signing with a company from Wisconsin to be the only company that can take official photos, and therefore, be the only ones who can reprint photos, or the current system that uses a multiplier for smaller high schools when it comes to the post season— the IHSA has hit a homerun with the random drug testing.
Sports organizations have been under pressure for years about their sport being clean. While being 100 perfcent clean is probably never going to be a reality since the drug makers will always be one step ahead of the testers, this will help.
With the recent release of the Mitchell Report in baseball, the issue of athletes using performance-enhancing drugs has been thrust back into the spotlight. Unfortunately, steroid use happens at the high school level. It would be naïve to think otherwise. I’m sure it’s not as rampant as it is at the professional sports level, but it does happen.
Sports are supposed to be fun. I will never say sports are fair or are supposed to be fair. They aren’t, and they never will be. But they should be fun. How fun is it if the guy on the other side is on drugs? I’d be scared, for example, if I knew the guy I was supposed to block in football was all ’roided up. Sports lose their fun when cheating is involved. Drugs are cheating. Plain and simple. Anytime you use something to get a competitive edge that isn’t legal, it’s cheating. Work out all you want, but the second you take a drug to aid that, it’s cheating.
The data from studies on what steroids do to the body should be enough motivation to sway anyone from using now, but unfortunately, it doesn’t. Alarmingly, more and more young athletes abuse performance-enhancing drugs to try and get a competitive advantage.
The risks and consequences of using anabolic steroids far outweigh the benefits. Sadly, it might take until players from baseball’s “steroid era” start experiencing health problems from their abuse before this generation sees what steroids can do to someone.
There’s a reason the NFL has had strict drug testing for awhile. It keeps the game clean and makes it better. Baseball missed the boat, and it seems that they are trying to make up for lost time by now conducting investigations and trying to find those who were cheating. The MLB didn’t seem to have a problem, nor did anyone really, when Mark Maguire and Sammy Sosa were shattering homerun records. No one batted an eye. Now that baseball has many fans back, they’re trying to make things right in their eyes. You can’t change the past. The only way to fix the future is to fix the present.
High school sports are much simpler and purer. The decision to randomly test student-athletes in Illinois during regionals, sectionals and championships is a great start. Taking out athletes on drugs makes the game better for the athletes who are doing it right and playing fairly. It also makes sports at the high school level safer. It’s not fair when a baseball player has been taking steroids to get a competitive edge. It’s not fair to the school, the team and even the athlete. Athletes should be getting by on hard work and natural talent. Not with a needle in their body.
The random drug testing is fair since every post-season player will be eligible to be tested. If they aren’t cheating, there shouldn’t be anything to hide. Tests will be looking for anabolic steroids, but will also find any illegal drug. The message from the IHSA is clear: play the game, but do it right.
While some oppose the idea of drug testing at the high school level because of privacy issues, I need to ask “Why?” Unless athletes are cheating, they have nothing to hide. The athletes who are playing clean should be proud that they are representing their school, team and selves well. I have so much respect for the kids who go out there and try their hardest even though they might not be the best than I ever will for an athlete who is using drugs to get ahead. They’re cheating so many people if they’re using steroids.
As a baseball fan, I am hurt to find out that so many players I cheered for growing up appear to be cheaters. It stinks. And while I feel baseball has no one to blame but itself because it didn’t have steroids, HGH, and other things named as illegal in it’s collective bargaining agreement, and it didn’t test for drugs, and it didn’t do anything when people said steroids were being used, the players should take some blame as well.
The fact that it got to the point where players had to cheat to get ahead is sad. It’s even sadder now when you think about all the players who got passed over or lost a job to someone who was cheating.
A lot of people are feeling robbed and betrayed. But instead of trying to go back and change history, the past should be used as a learning tool for the future. The future is what the IHSA is looking at. I applaud them for it. The future of high school sports in Illinois will continue to thrive and only get better by sports staying clean to the best of the current ability of testing. The athletes who are doing what’s right will reap the benefits. They will play their games safer, and it will be fun. There will be no worries about someone who is cheating getting an upper hand. Hopefully, this also motivates any athlete who is abusing drugs to stop before it’s too late.
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