Louis Ortiz faced what seemed to be the most important decision of his life.
Ortiz and two friends had chipped in $80 each to buy steroids from an acquaintance last summer.
“They were really easy for us to get a hold of,” said Ortiz, 18, a recent graduate of James Lick High School. “You could walk into any gym anywhere and get some. That is part of the reason they are such a big deal, because they are so easy to get.”
The group of friends had discussed it. It had run through their heads what seemed like a million times by now. But now the steroids were in front of them. Everything had changed.
Each friend had his own goals.
For Ortiz, it was a chance to get recruited, to vie for a sought-after Division I college football scholarship. For one of his friends, it was to get bigger for the high school football team.
No matter their intentions, one thing was for sure: This decision could affect the rest of their lives. Steroids could mean the difference between being a superstar and being average. And steroids also could mean the difference between heart and liver disease, hair loss and acne — or a healthy life.
The increased attention on steroids and the growing scandal in professional sports is leaking its way down to high schools athletes like Ortiz and his friends.
According to surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, steroid use among high school athletes has more than doubled from 1991 to 2003. More than 6 percent of 15,000 students surveyed admitted to having used the drugs. This is happening while fewer than 4 percent of the nation’s high schools are testing for steroids, according to a survey of high school athletics directors by the National Federation of State and High School Associations.
“Steroids are beginning to run rampant throughout our schools, and testing looks to be the only way we can slow them down,” said Dr. Gary Wadler, a New York sports medicine specialist who has testified for Congress as part of its Major League Baseball steroid inquiry. “This struggle will always exist: A new drug comes out that can improve performance and then it slides down to the youth. If we want to attack this epidemic, we have to attack it at the elementary levels. We must start to teach the kids at a young age about positive values and level playing fields.”
Ortiz and his friends wanted to be the best, the fastest, the strongest. They looked at their professional heroes and that’s when they started toying with the idea of steroids.
“I felt as if I was going to be lagging behind if I didn’t take them. They are a huge advantage these days. I did not want to be left in the dust,” Ortiz said. “We all bought the steroids with the hope that they would change us into super athletes.’’
In the highly competitive high school sports arena, more kids like Ortiz are looking to the needle in their quest to become elite.
Others, however, feel the same pressure, but not the same prick of the needle.
“I hate steroids because they are cheating, but when your competition is cheating it makes you want to cheat too so you can compete with them,” said David Fagin, a junior at Tracy High School and a starting defensive tackle on the football team.
Fagin says he has been offered the chance to use steroids but never has.
“Life is tough. You’re stuck in the middle and both sides are tugging the hell out of you,” Fagin said. “One side is saying no way would I ever do steroids, they are too dangerous, too many health risks and consequences. Then on the other side, you want to achieve athletic greatness.”
One constant in every steroid story is the set of harsh consequences. Side effects range from the relatively minor, such as hair loss and acne, to the life-threatening — heart disease, liver problems and cancer.
A main risk for teens, Wadler said, is stunted growth. Steroid users might not reach their maximum height.
“You would think that hearing so many bad things about steroids would turn teens off,” Fagin said. “But instead, it is turning them on and making them more eager to have them.”
That’s the problem: Steroids are bad. Teens know they’re bad. But looking at the professionals, it’s hard to ignore the potential.
“Hearing about how my idols are doing steroids and then performing at such a high level was one of the reasons why I was going to take them,” Ortiz said. “If they succeeded while using them, then I want to use them, too.”
This is one reason why the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has been forced to step up its fight to clean up professional sports.
“This anti-doping fight is winnable since it has to be won. I know we, at the Anti-Doping Agency, will do everything in our power to work for drug-free competition,” said Annette Salmeen, a member of the agency’s board of directors and a gold medalist in the 800-meter freestyle relay at the 1996 Olympics.
“I never felt pressure to take steroids or to cheat in any other way,” said Salmeen, who was reached by phone and e-mail. “I had too much respect for sport, my health and my fellow athletes to ever cheat.”
At the end, so did Ortiz and his friends. When they finally saw the steroids in front of them, when they weren’t just something on television, it got too real too quick.
“There were just too many consequences, too many risks,” said Ortiz, who has since gotten rid of the steroids. “At the time they just seemed like the answer to all my problems. They were going to help me get out of this town and go to college.”
That was a year ago. Today, he says he’s happy with his decision, although he didn’t go to college and isn’t playing football.
“These days,” Ortiz said, “I am totally opposed to any steroid use.”