Big test: Illinois high schools face many unknowns as they prepare to start testing for performance-enhancing drugs

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By Andrew Petersen | Monday, May 26, 2008 |

Steve Smithers hardly is surprised.

Cheating always has been present in professional sports. Only time seemed to stand in the way of deceitful practices funneling down through the college ranks and below.

Any thought of boundless innocence in sports is branded naïve with science every bit a part of sports as teamwork and hustle.

Good or bad, the evolution has reached the high school level, a fact that will be unavoidable in Illinois this fall.

In February, the Illinois High School Association announced a program to test athletes for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Two months later, the organization set corresponding penalties.

To Smithers, the athletic director at Rock Island Alleman, testing seems the best route.

“While (student athletes) may acknowledge that (PEDs) may be wrong, I’m not sure they totally understand that it may be wrong,” he said. “We’re fighting a good part of professional sports society where so much has gone on in recent years that some kids probably think it’s OK.

“We need to be there to say ‘No, it’s not.’ ”

Related studies and data are as plentiful as the variety of these drugs and can be nearly as overwhelming as the pronunciation of the banned substances.

For all the research, testing is viewed by proponents not as a surefire cure, but rather a preliminary step.

“This is one part of a bigger, more comprehensive approach we’ve taken to the performance-enhancing drug use problem that’s being faced all across the country,” IHSA assistance executive director Kurt Gibson said. “This program is designed to serve as a deterrent. It’s not a ‘let’s catch kids’ type of mechanism, although ultimately it will do that. But that’s not the intent.”

Illinois’ plan is the fourth such program in the country, coming on the heels of similar policies in New Jersey, Texas and Florida.

With those three states to study, Gibson and the rest of the IHSA administration realize implementing a testing policy is not without its obstacles.

Bumps in the road

As is the case in the other states, Illinois student athletes will be tested at random. Those students selected will be expected to provide urine samples after competitions.

Safe and convenient. The athletes already are on site.

But as New Jersey found in its first year of testing during the 2006-07 school year, after-event testing wasn’t without hassles. For this year, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association decided to test students during school hours instead.

“We have 3-, 4-hour waits before,” NJSIAA assistant director Bob Baly said. “That creates anxieties and an adversarial relationship. We really came to the conclusion that that was really a negative.”

Texas, which began testing this school year, also tests students during the school day. But the state’s University Interscholastic League has faced complaints about students missing exams after being pulled out of class for multiple hours to be tested for steroids.

Those are the situations Illinois hopes to avoid through dialogue with other states that test.

“We see how things are going, what hurdles they’ve had,” Gibson said. “From an application and implementation perspective, there’s a comfort level. We’re not doing anything that isn’t already being done.”

Money matters

One major difference between the Illinois program and the others is its independence from state government officials.

Legislative mandates initiated testing in the three other states, and those programs are funded with state money.

Amounts vary, but budget concerns loom over each of those programs.

Florida announced Monday that its program, enacted as a one-year trial, will not return next school year. The state legislature elected to allocate the $100,000 elsewhere, though testing supporters are hopeful the program will return in 2009-10.

Riverdale principal Jim Boyd sits on the IHSA board of directors. He sat in on countless meetings and came away with an optimistic view. In his opinion, even with cost concerns — these tests cost upwards of $200 each, compared to $30 for other drugs screens — widespread testing of high school athletes is almost certain in the future.

“A lot of talk has come up through the current federal level of congressmen,” Boyd said. “They’re concerned about our young people. Whether it comes from federal or state legislation, I can see if the problem isn’t curtailed, there will be that kind of outcome nationwide.”

Testing the percentages

In keeping with its ego-boosting motto, Texas boasts the biggest steroid-testing program.

The state legislature in the Lone Star State mandates that at least 3 percent of its estimated 760,000 student athletes be tested each school year.

With a $6 million budget, the league actually will test closer to 5 percent by the end of the school calendar.

Baly said New Jersey would love to test more athletes, but the association can only stretch $100,000 so far.

New Jersey tests 0.21 percent of its student athletes. Illinois is aiming for around 850 tests, which equates to less than half a percent of the state’s high school athletes.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to do what our membership wants us to do,” Gibson said. “If there were no monetary restrictions, and that’s what our membership wanted, certainly we would look at (expanding).”

One in approximately 200 IHSA athletes can expect to be tested, opening the program to questions of its effectiveness.

“There is the question at the high school level of whether (testing) is a deterrent,” Iowa High School Athletic Association assistant executive director Alan Beste said.

Ultimately, the logical thought process seems to be the greater the danger of being caught, the fewer athletes will choose to run that risk. But few expect usage — estimated at roughly 3 percent of high school athletes — will ever totally vanish.

“You can tell adolescents it’s dangerous to drive fast, but being adolescents, some of them are going to drive fast,” Baly said. “They don’t take risks when they think there’s a cop at the end of the corner with radar gun. We are that cop. He’s there, and he’s making them drive a little slower.

“The more corners where we have radar guns, the more effective we can be.”

Drawing conclusions

More studies are a must.

To this point, the concept of this sort of drug test working as a deterrent is largely assumed.

The states that do test are compiling data each year, but more time is needed for concrete determinations to be made.

“We need something to compare to,” Baly said, “so we can see if we actually have lowered the percentage (of PED users).”

In Boyd’s four years on the IHSA board, he said he has noticed how other state associations perceive the Illinois organization as a pioneer. From the inclusion of the Chicago Public League schools to the multiplier rule for private high schools, actions of the IHSA have sparked conversation.

Whether this most recent program will be lauded or lampooned, it’s already drawing an abundance of attention.

Andrew Petersen can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or apetersen@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qcvarsity.com.