STEROID TESTING IN TEXAS HIGH SCHOOLS HUGE WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY

With local, state, and our national government strapped for cash like no time in recent history, this story on steroid testing for high school athletes caught my attention. While it isn’t truly focused on college football, the state of Texas has long been a fertile breeding ground for many college prospects.With high school football king in the state of Texas, many thought the pressures to succeed, combined with the access to illegal steroids across the border, created a steroid problem in the state of Texas.Apparently not.After two rounds of testing, the state has found eleven steroid users. The $6 million program tested around 29,000 student-athletes in the first two rounds. That’s about one-third of one percent.(Almost the same sample size as the top one percent of one percent that Urban Meyer recruits to Florida.)*Right now, only Texas, New Jersey, and Florida test student-athletes for steroid usage. The state of Florida, finding only one user in its first 600 test decided to scrap it’s $100,000 program, sighting the lack of statistical evidence and hefty price tag in a down economy.Yet Don Hooton, who started the Taylor Hooton Foundation in Texas after his son committed suicide that some doctors blame on steroid abuse things the program should continue."They don’t stop testing Olympic athletes just because most of them don’t test positive,” Hooton said.It’s tough to validate spending $6 million when the numbers illustrate how clear it is that steroid abuse just isn’t a problem in high schools.*This comment was not suggesting that Florida Gators use steroids. Only that the Coach Meyer just recruits “The Best of the Best” to play football at Florida.