A Dose of Truth
by Paul
Rob Garibaldi was a 15 year old 5’9”, 130 pounds baseball player on a scout team sponsored by the California Angels. Believed to be too small, his coaches and scouts told him to bulk up and even provided him with supplements like creatine in order to do so. At the University of Southern California, Rob, now 5’11”, 160 pounds, had even more professional potential but still lacked size. This time Rob turned to anabolic steroids. He gained the fifty pounds and lived up to his promise.
Taylor Hooton was a pitcher for his Plano West Senior High School baseball team and had dreams of playing pro ball like his cousin Burt. Taylor was well-liked and talented and was looking to assert himself in his senior year. In a chemistry class, he told his friend that he was going to begin to use steroids, not for baseball, but for himself. Taylor was always concerned with his image and added thirty pounds of muscle to his 6’2” frame.
Efrain Marrero had a great high school career as an offensive lineman and went on to play football at the junior college level. He decided to move from the line to middle linebacker in order to attract more attention. However, that transition required a massive body transformation. Efrain turned to steroids in order to make this change.
On October 1, 2002 Rob Garibaldi shot himself in his car. Leading up to this point, Rob’s parents noted his weight gain, added muscle mass, balding, acne, and uncontrollable rage, but were ignorant as to these being the side effects of steroids. Rob was admitted to the Psychiatric Emergency Services in Santa Rosa, California after assaulting his dad and threatening to kill himself. He ended up losing all he loved in life, baseball, after he was dismissed from the USC team. Rob spiraled into a deep depression and took the only way out he saw, committing suicide.
One month after his seventeenth birthday, July 12, 2003, Taylor Hooton’s parents found him hanged in his bedroom. Taylor killed himself after entering a depressed state due to withdrawal after he stopped using the steroids. Once again, his parents were naïve to the side effects of steroids, many of which he exhibited. His parents made him take a drug test, one that only screened recreational drugs, not steroids. While taking Deca 300 and anadrol, Taylor showed behavior different from his norm. He stopped using before a family vacation, and killed himself after he returned.
Efrain Marrero broke his parents’ hearts when he shot himself on September 26, 2004. Unlike the Garibaldi’s and the Hooton’s, Efrain’s parents became aware of their son’s steroid use three weeks before his suicide. He came forward and confessed everything to them. They brought their son to a doctor and a counselor and Efrain stopped. He stopped too suddenly. Steroid users need to be gradually taken off the drugs and monitored carefully for symptoms of depression. Efrain was not, and suicide was the result.
A goal was in sight for Rob, Taylor, and Efrain. Professional or collegiate athletics provided the opportunity for each of them to be appreciated for their hard work. However, because they did not have an ideal body type, each athlete added steroids to their hard work. Like so many high school athletes, Rob, Taylor, and Efrain decided to take steroids unaware that the drugs would control the lives, and ultimately end them.
It is estimated that between 500,000 and one million high school students use steroids. Shockingly, according to a University of Michigan study, as many as three percent of eighth graders have been found using steroids. Not just athletes are users. Students take steroids for myriad different reasons. Whether they want to enhance athletic performance, gain confidence, or attract attention from the opposite sex, students turn to the easily attainable drugs without a full understanding of the side effects.
With a plethora of different types of steroids, side effects are diverse in both frequency and intensity. The main health risks include infertility, atrophied testicles, high blood pressure, liver damage, and prostate cancer. These more severe effects may not appear until twenty or thirty years after steroid use. The visible side effects during use include severe back acne, male pattern baldness, rapid growth of muscle mass, feminization in men including the development of breasts, and masculinization in women including facial hair growth. In addition, mood swings and ‘roid range are uncontrollable by steroid users. The constant turbulence present in a user’s mind leads to depression and suicide as evident in the above cases.
Last March, six football players from Daniel Hand High in Madison were arrested for possession. Connecticut state legislators are currently reviewing mandatory testing programs for high school athletes, which is a hot issue across the country. Whether at the state or national level, senators and congressmen have been debating the pros and cons of these programs. They will protect student athletes and the integrity of teens, but also may be considered an invasion of privacy.
Testing is done in very few high schools across the country. The main reason for this deficiency is money. Each test costs fifty dollars to administer. With 259 students participating in Redcoat athletics this past fall, testing each athlete would have cost $12,950. That cost covers only one of the three sports seasons. It is impossible for any athletic director to fund steroid testing at such a cost. Our school tells athletes what not to take during parent/athlete sports nights before each season, but more needs to be said about the side effects and dangers of steroid use.
Responsibility should not fall on the school alone. State and federal funding should help decrease the cost of testing. Steroid abuse should be a subject in the state mandated health education programs. Starting in middle school, teens need to learn about the dangers of steroid use, just as they are educated about the dangers of recreational drugs.
The problem of steroid use cannot be ignored. We cannot push the blame on the influences of professional athletes when the subject of steroids remains taboo in school systems. Cleaning up professional athletics will aid the problem in one respect, but unless teens become fully aware of the steroids epidemic, we will be fighting a losing battle.
Rob Garibaldi was a 15 year old 5’9”, 130 pounds baseball player on a scout team sponsored by the California Angels. Believed to be too small, his coaches and scouts told him to bulk up and even provided him with supplements like creatine in order to do so. At the University of Southern California, Rob, now 5’11”, 160 pounds, had even more professional potential but still lacked size. This time Rob turned to anabolic steroids. He gained the fifty pounds and lived up to his promise.
Taylor Hooton was a pitcher for his Plano West Senior High School baseball team and had dreams of playing pro ball like his cousin Burt. Taylor was well-liked and talented and was looking to assert himself in his senior year. In a chemistry class, he told his friend that he was going to begin to use steroids, not for baseball, but for himself. Taylor was always concerned with his image and added thirty pounds of muscle to his 6’2” frame.
Efrain Marrero had a great high school career as an offensive lineman and went on to play football at the junior college level. He decided to move from the line to middle linebacker in order to attract more attention. However, that transition required a massive body transformation. Efrain turned to steroids in order to make this change.
On October 1, 2002 Rob Garibaldi shot himself in his car. Leading up to this point, Rob’s parents noted his weight gain, added muscle mass, balding, acne, and uncontrollable rage, but were ignorant as to these being the side effects of steroids. Rob was admitted to the Psychiatric Emergency Services in Santa Rosa, California after assaulting his dad and threatening to kill himself. He ended up losing all he loved in life, baseball, after he was dismissed from the USC team. Rob spiraled into a deep depression and took the only way out he saw, committing suicide.
One month after his seventeenth birthday, July 12, 2003, Taylor Hooton’s parents found him hanged in his bedroom. Taylor killed himself after entering a depressed state due to withdrawal after he stopped using the steroids. Once again, his parents were naïve to the side effects of steroids, many of which he exhibited. His parents made him take a drug test, one that only screened recreational drugs, not steroids. While taking Deca 300 and anadrol, Taylor showed behavior different from his norm. He stopped using before a family vacation, and killed himself after he returned.
Efrain Marrero broke his parents’ hearts when he shot himself on September 26, 2004. Unlike the Garibaldi’s and the Hooton’s, Efrain’s parents became aware of their son’s steroid use three weeks before his suicide. He came forward and confessed everything to them. They brought their son to a doctor and a counselor and Efrain stopped. He stopped too suddenly. Steroid users need to be gradually taken off the drugs and monitored carefully for symptoms of depression. Efrain was not, and suicide was the result.
A goal was in sight for Rob, Taylor, and Efrain. Professional or collegiate athletics provided the opportunity for each of them to be appreciated for their hard work. However, because they did not have an ideal body type, each athlete added steroids to their hard work. Like so many high school athletes, Rob, Taylor, and Efrain decided to take steroids unaware that the drugs would control the lives, and ultimately end them.
It is estimated that between 500,000 and one million high school students use steroids. Shockingly, according to a University of Michigan study, as many as three percent of eighth graders have been found using steroids. Not just athletes are users. Students take steroids for myriad different reasons. Whether they want to enhance athletic performance, gain confidence, or attract attention from the opposite sex, students turn to the easily attainable drugs without a full understanding of the side effects.
With a plethora of different types of steroids, side effects are diverse in both frequency and intensity. The main health risks include infertility, atrophied testicles, high blood pressure, liver damage, and prostate cancer. These more severe effects may not appear until twenty or thirty years after steroid use. The visible side effects during use include severe back acne, male pattern baldness, rapid growth of muscle mass, feminization in men including the development of breasts, and masculinization in women including facial hair growth. In addition, mood swings and ‘roid range are uncontrollable by steroid users. The constant turbulence present in a user’s mind leads to depression and suicide as evident in the above cases.
Last March, six football players from Daniel Hand High in Madison were arrested for possession. Connecticut state legislators are currently reviewing mandatory testing programs for high school athletes, which is a hot issue across the country. Whether at the state or national level, senators and congressmen have been debating the pros and cons of these programs. They will protect student athletes and the integrity of teens, but also may be considered an invasion of privacy.
Testing is done in very few high schools across the country. The main reason for this deficiency is money. Each test costs fifty dollars to administer. With 259 students participating in Redcoat athletics this past fall, testing each athlete would have cost $12,950. That cost covers only one of the three sports seasons. It is impossible for any athletic director to fund steroid testing at such a cost. Our school tells athletes what not to take during parent/athlete sports nights before each season, but more needs to be said about the side effects and dangers of steroid use.
Responsibility should not fall on the school alone. State and federal funding should help decrease the cost of testing. Steroid abuse should be a subject in the state mandated health education programs. Starting in middle school, teens need to learn about the dangers of steroid use, just as they are educated about the dangers of recreational drugs.
The problem of steroid use cannot be ignored. We cannot push the blame on the influences of professional athletes when the subject of steroids remains taboo in school systems. Cleaning up professional athletics will aid the problem in one respect, but unless teens become fully aware of the steroids epidemic, we will be fighting a losing battle.
posted by sportzdudes at 6:16 PM
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