Tag Archives: Texas high school sports

UIL to end steroid testing of athletes

Texas athletic officials enacted a steroid-testing program for high school student-athletes thinking that they would discover widespread abuse of the muscle-building drug.

It didn’t happen. The state looked high and low, tested thousands of youngsters and found virtually zero steroid use.

Therefore the state is likely to end its testing program, saving Texans a lot of money.

Good deal.

The University Interscholastic League, which governs extracurricular activities for Texas public high school students, reports finding two — that’s it, two! — cases of steroid use in 2007-08. The UIL tested more than 10,000 students.

There you have it.

The rampant plague of steroid abuse among student-athletes doesn’t exist. Consider it the same as the weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to have been stored in Iraq prior to our March 2003 invasion; our troops arrived, looked for the WMD and didn’t find a thing.

It’s good that the state is heading toward ending the steroid-testing program. It’s even better to learn that despite the hype and hoopla that the state’s high school athletic community isn’t full of juiced-up freaks looking for any edge they can find.