PREP SPORTS - DRUG TESTING SHOULD BEGIN IN HIGH SCHOOL

It may sound tough when a player gets suspended for 10 days from
Major-League Baseball for using a banned substance. And it may sound even
tougher when the Olympic form of punishment -- a two-year ban for strike
one, and for strike two a ban until the Chicago Cubs win the World Series
- -- is discussed as a possible deterrent to cheating on a physical level in
baseball.

But while the whole thing may seem like a mess Major League Baseball has
created, it really isn't.

It may be within the realm of possibility that Rafael Palmeiro simply woke
up one day, after a lifetime of playing by the rules, and decided to take
steroids to gain an unfair advantage. But doesn't it seem more likely that
Palmeiro's attitude was shaped long before he made his debut with the
Chicago Cubs in 1986?

Shouldn't Palmeiro have been subjected to stricter standards when he was a
minor-league baseball player? Shouldn't he have been monitored closely when
he became a college baseball star at Mississippi State?

Perhaps the answer to those questions is negative because that was a long
time ago. Attitudes were different, people were generally ignorant about
the dangers of steroid use, and testing may not have been very effective.

But it is now.

So what are we doing about it?

Is there a rush afoot to make sure every college athlete understands the
dangers of drug abuse, including penalties for doing it? Do high school
coaches make sure to include speeches about avoiding performance-enhancing
drugs before, during and after the season?

There is a commercial currently circulating on television, talking about
what steroids do to a person's body. Is that enough? Is talking enough?
Drug-education classes are critically important, but are they enough?

Perhaps it's time for every high school in Northeast Tennessee to start
doing a little something more. Perhaps it's time for random drug testing of
all high school athletes. The expense of such tests would be a concern, but
wouldn't it be worth the investment?

It's one thing to tell kids how bad things can get if they use
performance-enhancing drugs or other kinds of drugs, including marijuana
and alcohol. But it's another important step to implement a drug-testing
program to seek out those who are abusing their bodies. It may not help
everybody, but if it helped a relative few it would be worth it.

Think about it. The star first baseman for High School A, just months away
from signing a lucrative professional baseball contract, gets kicked off
his high school team for testing positive for marijuana.

Gone is all that money for that young man. Gone is any semblance of
athletic pride. But what is left is the indelible mark it would make on
every kid at that school. Wow, look how that guy screwed up his life, all
because of drugs.

But the lesson of failure isn't the central issue. The central issue is the
common sense fact, as one area high school coach put it, "It's easier not
to start something bad than to have to quit it."

The whole point of the matter is: If you want to raise apples, plant apple
seeds.

It would be almost impossible to change someone like Rafael Palmeiro --
without a time machine. Fortunately there's no need for such a device to
change the Rafael Palmeiros of 2015 and beyond.

Sow education and good old-fashioned moral teaching in today's youth, and
reap a better generation.