BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Sycamore High School Athletic Director Jim Stoll is fighting the battle, but he cannot win the war.
That's something his 1,200 student athletes can only do for themselves.
Two years ago, the Sycamore administration and school board decided it was time to take a stronger stand against drug and alcohol abuse. A study by Citizens Against Substance Abuse showed that more than half the student body had used drugs or alcohol, including 48 percent of freshmen and 69 percent of seniors.
It was an unpleasant truth, and led to a difficult decision. Approach it honestly and a school runs the risk of being labeled as having "a drug problem." Keep its head in the sand and the school may save its reputation, but perhaps at the cost of young lives. Sycamore took the challenge. The school board considered drug testing for athletes, an attention-grabbing step, but not necessarily an effective one. Staying clean before sporting events, or even for the season, might have little to do with staying clean for life. So Mr. Stoll turned to the NCAA to find out what it knew about preventing drug problems, not simply uncovering them.
Its first piece of advice: Face up. Get real. Otherwise, schools and coaches -- just like parents -- are inevitably enablers.
The term sank in with Mr. Stoll.
"We had 110 coaches at Sycamore, and in my two years as athletic director, I had never dealt with one drug or alcohol-related problem," he says. "I thought, "Great,' but really we had just buried our head in the sand."
Not drug-free
A survey of Sycamore athletes answered the questions coaches had been reluctant to ask: 20 percent had used alcohol in the last year; 7 percent had used marijuana.
They were talented kids. Smart kids. Some, student leaders. But their behavior was both dangerous and illegal.
So Sycamore Schools decided the best weapon in their arsenal was open, honest talk. Coming clean about what they not only expected of their students, but what they hoped for them.
Coming clean about their role in substance abuse prevention. Coming clean about what parents and communities must do.
And saying, straight on, that they cared enough to do something. Mr. Stoll wrote a program, Refuse to Use, that includes lessons on self-image, assertiveness, drug facts, responsibility to friends, family and team. Coaches teach it, every week, every season, to every team.
The cost is extra batting practice and blocking time. But this is what Sycamore athletes get in return: They know their coaches care about them, not just as players, but as people.
They know the facts about drug and alcohol abuse. They know there are consequences to pay.
And they know their school and community do not accept the myth that drug and alcohol use is simply a phase kids must go through -- from which, surely, some will not return.
On any given Friday night, it does not mean that every Sycamore teen-ager will turn down a party, put down a beer, impress himself instead of his peers.
But it does mean something.
"The best thing to do is sit around and have a group discussion, and tell stories about what has happened to other people," says one member of the varsity baseball team. "That's when it hits you, when you think it could happen to you."
"The facts make you aware," says another, "but when you hear the stories, they are what really make you think."
That's the weapon Jim Stoll has given them, the edge Sycamore athletes receive. That they will be heads up -- ready -- not just for play calls and tests, but for decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at the Enquirer, 312 Elm St. Cincinnati 45202.
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