Students Bring to Light Steroid Use
by John Byrne and Tobias Smith

The use of illegal anabolic steroids has been discovered among a small contingent of players on Oberlin’s football squad.
A member of the team, who asked to remain anonymous, has admitted to injecting the illegal steroid Dianabol.
“I know I can say at least five people are on illegal steroids, which would be 10 percent of the squad,” he said. A College employee in the Athletics division said that between six and 10 players have used steroids in the last year.
“For a school of this size, at the competitive level we’re at, that’s a high number,” said Dr. Paul Matus, chief medical officer for Lorain County. “That’s double what I would expect.”
A second player, who says he has not taken the drugs, has stated that team members are using steroids. Some are also purportedly abusing clenbuterol, a prescription-only fat-burning agent.
“Whoever it is needs to come forward because believe me, I will find out,” head football coach Jeff Ramsey said.
“I will not have that on our football team,” he added. “It sounds like I need to have a team meeting.”
He also said he doesn’t even think players should be taking creatine, which is legal.
Other team members, however, refute claims that this is a team problem. “Individual athletes make the decision themselves. An athlete’s choice is not reflected on the culture of football but is a reflection of individual competitiveness,” sophomore student senator and former football player Behrad Mahdi said.
The steroids appear to have made a resurgence with the last two football seasons. One of the players said steroid use also peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“This is probably higher than Oberlin had in the mid-1980s,” he said.
Anabolic steroids are testosterone, or testosterone-like drugs, which augment protein synthesis and result in increased muscle mass. In a 1999 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the lifetime use for anabolic steroids in American males was estimated to be 4.9 percent.
One source said that he bought the drugs from another team member. Another player, however, suggests that the drugs are not widely available and that the people who obtain the more potent drugs get them from the East Coast.
The staff member in the athletic department contends that steroid abuse did not occur prior to the last two classes. “Some of the recruits had brought it here. It followed several of them,” he said.
When asked what percentage of the football team was on illegal steroids, he said, “I would say probably 10-15 percent.”
The co-captain of the team, sophomore Adam Polisei, however, does not believe that team members use steroids.
“To my knowledge there is nobody on the team using steroids,” he said. “I’d think with how close I am to all the players on the team I’d be the first person to know about it.”
“We’re all students first and then athletes. We’re not going to damage our bodies for the rest of our lives in order to win a few football games,” he continued. “This is an academic place. The kids who come here are good students and good football players. If they come here they’re smart enough to know the consequences of steroid use.”
Assistant football and head lacrosse Coach Robert Oldham also denied knowledge of steroid use.
The football player who admitted team use, but said he had not personally taken the drugs, cautioned against indicting Oberlin’s football program, saying, “A few bad people have ruined things for people who have come here for the right reasons.”
The player who said he injected steroids described the process.
“You get syringes and you inject between two and three ccs. A shot goes in your ass and you eat a lot of protein and that’s basically it,” he said.
“When I did it my bench [press] went up 50 pounds in a week,” he continued. “They do a cycle right before and right after the season,” he continued. “They’ll finish a month before the season starts.
Some steroids can be taken orally, others are injected. Syringes can be purchased at Discount Drug Mart on Route 58 in Oberlin. Generally, the pharmacist will ask if the buyer is a diabetic, but no proof is required in Ohio. Several other states have laws that require prescriptions for their purchase; Ohio, however, does not.
“In Ohio, it used to be if you came in for syringes it required an I.D.,” said pharmacist Bill Doane, who works at Drug Mart. “The laws were relaxed probably four years ago....The main reason was for privacy issues.”
“Folks that come in can get syringes and use them for steroids or illegal drugs,” he added. “I have no way to control it.”
Anabolic steroids, which were developed in the late 1950s, were made illegal under congressional legislation in 1988. A 1997 experiment on mice spotlighted in the NCAA’s newspaper indicated that steroid abuse, at levels roughly equivalent to those taken by humans, can lead to premature death. They have been found to cause cardiovascular disease and reproductive dysfunction. In addition, they often yield adverse psychological side effects, including aggression, irritability and depression.
Steroids have also been linked with a condition called ’roid rage, in which a user becomes unduly aggressive.
“’Roid rage is a phenomenon that’s not widely understood,” the College employee said. “I would assume it can make someone prone to do anything that is in the realm of thought, from punching your best friend because you just felt like doing it, to assaulting people in physical or sexual ways.”
Another team member, however, debunked the notion.
“‘Roid rage is more of a wive’s tale,” he said.
“With steroids the downside can be and is oftentimes cataclysmic and immediate,” Dr. Matus said.
When asked if he had seen steroid abuse in Lorain County, Matus said, “We’ve had a couple of cases....There’s been some suspected cardiomyopathy and sudden death.”
Cardiomyopathy, one of numerous medical conditions brought on or complicated by steroids, is a form of heart disease.
“I know of one fellow who lives in Oberlin that has cardiomyopathy caused by steroid use,” Matus said.
“The rules for the College players is that if they win a playoff game then they’re tested randomly. So, in order for any of the players to be tested they have to win a playoff game,” Assistant Coach Oldham said.
Ramsey confirmed this, and that the College doesn’t test players.
“We don’t test because we don’t have the resources or funding to do that,” he said.
The Athletics employee also said that he believed 70-80 percent of the team was on some form of muscle enhancer. Many team members also use creatine or the over-the-counter steroid androstenedione, or “andro,” he said. While not illegal, androstendione is banned under NCAA regulations.
“Androstenedione is the precursor for testosterone,” he said. “It’s what Mark McGwire took.”
“As an institution, you need to take a zero tolerance stand, from the very top of the administration to the assistant football coaches,” Dr. Matus said. “The institutional philosophy has to be very strong, very direct with respect to discouraging the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs.”
“I think the NCAC should be testing everyone…at least once a year,” one player said.
–This article is part of a joint investigation between the Review and the Muckraker.

May 10
Commencement

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