Other Campuses: Speakers discourage steroids

(U-WIRE) LAWRENCE, Kan. – A panel of two sportswriters and a former professional football player expressed concern about youth’s use of steroids during a discussion Tuesday night at the University of Kansas.

It was part of a discussion called “Doping and Professional Sports” at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics.

John Hadl, Bill James and Bill Althaus spoke to nearly 50 people about their concerns with steroid use in professional sports, but none of them had any effective ways to keep athletes from using them.

While steroid use is illegal unless prescribed by a doctor, the way athletes use the drug differs from the way society uses other drugs, said James, a writer on baseball history and statistics.

“In baseball the drug problem is the opposite of the drug problem in the rest of society, which is about pleasure-seeking and an instant payoff and instant reward,” James said. “In baseball the drug is about motivation and an effort to make yourself better.”

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All three panelists said that steroid use on the professional level encouraged steroid use in youth sports.

“What is so bad about steroid use with young people is that they think it is a quick fix,” said Althaus, a sportswriter and columnist for The Examiner in Independence, Mo. “But if you can’t hit a fast ball or if you can’t hit a curve ball, then steroids aren’t going to help you succeed.”

James said the problem with professional athletes using steroids was that it was wrong to set an example to do something that was dangerous.

Hadl, former NFL and KU All-American football player, attested to this danger. While he played in the NFL during the 1960s and 1970s, Hadl said he saw several players use steroids.

At meals, there would be pills sitting on their plates, he said.

“It was a brand-new thing,” Hadl said. “We didn’t know about it. The coaches didn’t know about it. We just thought it would help us win games.”

Although he and about 10 other players never took the pills, Hadl said, the players who did were adversely affected.

“The drug caused them to have mood swings and highs and lows,” he said.

Congress began investigating steroids in professional sports earlier this year. Congress has already investigated major league baseball and football. It will continue to investigate other sports, including professional basketball.

The panelists agreed that steroids were a controversial issue in professional sports but said Congress should hold back for now.

“It’s an extremely complicated subject,” James said. “And until we have a better understanding of what we’re dealing with, Congress should stay out of it.”

James said steroid use could be dealt with on four levels: Individual, team, baseball government or federal government. Steroid use can’t be fixed at the individual or team level because there was still a desire to cheat to get ahead of other players or teams, James said.

He said the players needed to make an agreement with the governing body of baseball to reach appropriate standards for testing.

– Jason Shaad