NEWARK, N.J. – It was a tough day for the Hackettstown High School wrestler. He lost in the final match of the state group wrestling tournament. Then, before the tired 18-year-old could leave – before he could even line up for the team handshake – his coach whisked him from the bench for a steroid test.

Cory Vernon didn’t particularly like the wait as he and 29 other athletes from six teams were screened a few weeks ago, but he didn’t mind the idea of being one of the first wrestlers given a doping test by the state.

“I agree with it 100 percent,” said Vernon, one of the top 145-pounders in New Jersey. “It keeps the sport clean.”

As other states watch, high school athletes in New Jersey are the first in the nation being required to submit to random tests for steroids when their teams reach state playoffs.

Results released from the first round of testing, in the fall sports season, showed no positive tests. With the winter championships now in full swing, 180 more athletes are to be tested. Swimmers, basketball players and possibly ice hockey players will be among those required to submit to steroid screening.

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association is overseeing the testing program. The results so far show it is working, said NJSIAA assistant director Bob Baly. “The important thing is that these steroid tests act as deterrents to high school athletes,” he said.

New Jersey’s program has encountered no resistance either from athletic directors or students so far, according to Baly.

Baly said the state has mandated tests for 5 percent of athletes competing in tournaments. It provided $50,000 in funding; the NJSIAA came up with an additional $50,000 to pay for the program. Tests cost about $175 each.

New Jersey has roughly 240,000 high school sports participants, 10,000 of whom reach state championship competitions. Some critics have questioned whether testing just 500 of them would be effective. Others express concern about invading the privacy of athletes who have done nothing wrong.

Stephen Rice, a sports medicine physician at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, said privacy issues concern him but the dangers of steroids to an athlete and the impact on sports justify the testing.

“This may the price we have to be willing to pay,” he said.

Of the results so far, Rice said it was heartening to find athletes competing at state tournaments aren’t on steroids. But if no students are busted, it may mean the tests are too unsophisticated or administered too late in the season to catch abusers, he added.

The biggest complaint from players and coaches so far seems to be the time it takes to get a urine sample from an exhausted player.

In the fall, for instance, a dehydrated field hockey player needed two hours to provide a urine sample. And in the wrestling tournament held two weeks ago in Toms River, a wrestler who was over-hydrated had to provide four samples before one was deemed acceptable.

At Voorhees High School, Athletic Director Al Stumpf said students aren’t sweating the test, especially in a district that has randomly tested athletes for recreational drugs for three years.

“I don’t have a problem with it, because it is something that’s preventative and sends a message the state does care about the student athletes’ health,” he said.

Drug Free Sport, a Kansas City, Mo., organization that screens athletes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and minor-league baseball, administers the New Jersey tests.

The high school athletic director gets three days’ advance notice when a team is to be tested. The NJSIAA suggests the athletic director refrain from telling the athletes until after their contests, to avoid making them nervous.

On the day of the test, a coach must submit a roster of players, and a computer randomly chooses the athletes to be tested.

JM END McCARRON

(Bev McCarron is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. She can be contacted at bmccarron(at)starledger.com.)

2007-03-01-PREPSPORT-STEROID

AP-NY-03-01-07 1246EST