Former Steelers offensive lineman duscusses steroids
A former offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers said athletes aren’t role models, they’re businessmen. “You’re talking about a business where you’re rewarded based on your performance,” said Steve Courson, who admittedly used steroids during his time in the National Football League. “Elite athletes who don’t use drugs are in the vast minority.”
Courson said that even the Olympics have been tarnished. “If you want to win a gold medal and you don’t use performance-enhancement drugs, unless you’re some unbelievable freak of nature, you might not as well even get on the stage. No one wants to admit it, but that’s reality, and if BALCO doesn’t show that then nothing does.”
The Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) recently made headlines when New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi said he used steroids and human growth hormones.
According to the Associated Press, BALCO has been charged with distributing steroids to professional athletes.
Penalties for steroid use in baseball were not in place until 2003, the Associated Press said.
“Despite some tough rhetoric, our society has generally taken a very cavalier attitude toward steroid use and other performance-enhancement drugs,” Courson said. “It’s because people are more interested in being entertained that they are worried about whether athletes are taking drugs.”
Sitting in a pew before giving a seminar to adults at Uniontown’s Church of Christ Saturday night, Courson, who played on teams that won Super Bowls XIII and XIV, said performance-enhancement drugs are “out there in a big way,” and he didn’t just mean among elite athletes.
Studies show more high school and college students – male and female – are using anabolic steroids and human growth hormones. Middle school students are also starting to use the drugs.
“Kids shouldn’t use steroids, and there are a lot of good reasons why they shouldn’t. But more and more teens are using and they don’t know the long-term effects,” he said. “It’s a different ballgame for adults who are competing for money.”
Courson retired in 1985 and soon after developed cardiomyopathy, a condition that enlarges the heart and causes it to weaken. He said that he doesn’t know if the steroids caused the disease, which he has been able to reverse with diet and exercise.
He now spends part of his time educating people – many of them high school students – about nutrition, exercise and the dangers of steroid use.
Courson said that he began taking steroids while attending the University of South Carolina. He said that they were prescribed by the team physician and paid for by the school.
“It was common in sports at that time. Those drugs weren’t banned; they weren’t illegal,” he said, adding that he began taking them in order to enhance his training.
“You have to understand the nature of elite sports. Training means pushing the human body beyond its natural capabilities by unnatural means, whether that means lifting weights or taking steroids,” he said. “If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t use steroids. But if I had it all over to do again, and I wanted to achieve what I did in football, I would have no choice.”
Courson said high school students need to know there are consequences when performance-enhancement drugs are used, especially when used at such a young age.
“Steroids will stunt your growth. They’ll seal the growth plates at the long ends on the bone, and it’s irreversible,” he said.
Acne can also become more pronounced, and males run the risk of developing breasts, Courson said.
Courson said steroids and other performance-enhancement drugs are easy to obtain.
“The elite athletes are well connected. They have money, so they can afford to buy them off safer sources. They know what they’re getting and how to take it. Kids don’t know if the drugs they’re buying were made in some backroom bathtub, and they don’t even know what’s in them to begin with,” Courson said. “Some of the stuff they buy is fake, so they’re just throwing their money away.”
Like elite athletes, Courson said high school athletes are pressured to win.
“You can’t tell kids they may develop liver disease or heart disease in 30 or 40 years. First of all, we haven’t proven that medically yet anyway. And second of all, how many kids are worried about 30 or 40 years down the road? They’re worried about making the first team on varsity,” he said. “You have to give them legitimate reasons why they shouldn’t use drugs.”
Courson said students have to realize professional athletes who take steroids are surrounded by people who scientifically know how to manipulate the human body.
“It’s a very sophisticated science. It’s hormonal manipulation,” he said.
“Those in the know are using anti-estrogen drugs, and they’re also using fertility drugs when they come off cycle to kick their natural testosterone process back in. Most high school students aren’t that sophisticated or that knowledgeable.”
According to Courson, parents of high-school students should suspect steroid use if their child has an increase in muscle mass in a short amount of time and becomes more aggressive.
“There’s a lot of denial involved with steroid use,” he said.
People can develop muscle without taking performance-enhancement drugs. In his teenager and adult seminars, Courson focuses on low-impact cardio training, resistance training and a high protein, low sugar diet that controls insulin levels.
Courson said that athletes who want to add bulk can do so, to some degree, without drugs. But, he said that athletes who use drugs will always have an advantage.
“Do I wish drugs were totally out of sports? Absolutely. Do I think that’s going to happen? No, I don’t, obviously because they work. High school kids shouldn’t take them. If college students are going to do it, they need to understand the positives and the negatives, and then they have to make an educated, adult decision,” he said. “I would never encourage anyone to do it. But athletes know the way the athletic world is and they know how much money is out there. I would never do it again, but I understand why athletes do. I know why I did.”