Standing At That O So Common Intersection Of Life
There are occasions in life, more than we probably realize, when we find ourselves standing at the intersection of politics and sports. Both are prevailing cultures of our society, so it is expected that - at times - their separating boundries will sometimes blur. Look at some examples:
- President Carter’s protest of the 1980 Olympic Games,
- Our Current President is a former baseball General Manager,
- Greg Oden, the number one overall pick of the 2007 NBA draft endorsed in this past democrat Presidential Primary,
- Curt Shilling’s headline catching endorsement of President Bush upon winning the 2004 World Series,
- and of course, who among us can forget Pat Tillman’s courageous story of putting down the shoulder pads to take up arms overseas?
Kirk Bohls, of the Austin American Statesman, recently profiled a more close to home example of standing at that familiar intersection when he weighted in on Texas’ new steriod testing program, and if we are hitting the mark or missing the big picture. According to Mr. Bohls, one of my all-time favorite sporting columnists, the fact that Texas only identified two student athletes abusing steroids does bring into question the millions of dollars spent and, yes, we are missing the big picture by not testing our student athletes for use of such recreational substances as cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol.
On the topic of was it worth it, I don’t know and therefore I will not disagree with Mr. Bohls. I like to think that perhaps there is something to Lt. Governor Dewhurst’s take that just catching two means that the program is acting as a successful deterrent. Yet, I can not in good faith completely submit to that theory and not question if steroid abuse was an apparent problem in Texas, or one that we simply created with sensational headlines anytime an occurrence was uncovered.
It is Mr. Bohls’s passion for Texas taking it one step further and incorporating recreational drug testing into its UIL testing program that I would like to focus on with this post. Quoting Mr. Bohls:
Without question, some athletes use steroids. But there are thousands more high school students who are abusing alcohol, marijuana, heroin or cocaine than have ever considered injecting themselves with anabolic steroids, designated an illegal controlled substance without a doctor’s prescription in 1991.
That is exactly why the University Interscholastic League should pursue directives from its own membership to strongly urge the Legislature to broaden the horizons of this unprecedented drug-testing effort to check for more dangerous substances.
No one, least of which myself, can argue that Mr. Bohls’s heart is not in the right place. Even though the National Institute on Drug Abuse would suggest that teen drug use has declined slightly since the statistics Mr. Bohls quotes from 2004, substance abuse amongst our youth remains a problem that plagues our society despite our multiple wars against drugs. Yet I will disagree with an idol, a person whose eyes that I have seen the evolution of sports through, when Mr. Bohls asserts that this battle needs to be fought on our high school playing fields.
Perhaps it is time to grow more aggressive against teen drug use, but that is an argument separate from the venue. I disagree that this crusade should be carried out through Texas’ countless locker rooms for two reasons. First, steroids is a sports specific drug. No one takes steroids so that they can skate faster on their skateboard. Likewise, students don’t take steroids so that they can look better in a bathing suit. Those that do, seek out and use steroids for athletic achievement. Couple that with the unfair advantage that steroids produces and you have the justification in targeting high school athletes with this testing program.
Recreational drugs, however, do not know the boundaries of a locker room. They are not sports specific, and in fact, it would not surprise this blogger to learn that recreational drugs are used more by students outside of organized athletics than by those who compete on playing fields. Cocaine, pot, booze, they’re used by all: athletes, honor roll students, deadbeats, band members, cheerleaders, and hall monitors. Heck, I imagine they’ve even found a way to infiltrate the chess team.
As such, I think a UIL recreational drug testing program would unfairly target and discriminate against UIL athletes, and to steal Mr. Bohls’s sentiment, I believe it would miss the mark by not targeting student bodies as a whole. So as I find myself standing at the corner of politics and sports, staring at the street sign and wondering which way we should go, I implore the Legislature to not take up this crusade.
Recreational drug use by teenagers is far bigger than just our student athletes. Don’t disproportionately go after them in a witch hunt that you are not willing to extend to entire student bodies.