Players told coach of rival steroid use

NCMeanGreen · February 22, 2005

Exclusive: Grapevine, Carroll athletes named by Heritage students

09:34 AM CST on Tuesday, February 22, 2005

By GARY JACOBSON and GREGG JONES / The Dallas Morning News

Colleyville Heritage High School football players who admitted using anabolic steroids gave their coach the names of football players at Southlake Carroll and Grapevine high schools who they said also took the banned drugs, according to documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

Heritage football coach Chris Cunningham described the allegations of steroid use at Carroll -- home of the nation's top-ranked football program -- and Grapevine in a meeting early this month with top Grapevine-Colleyville school district officials.

The players from the three schools had a common steroid dealer, an adult called "Big Mike," according to notes taken at the meeting by some officials.

One participant in the Feb. 3 meeting made the following notation about the steroid use admitted by nine Heritage athletes: "Got to 'Big Mike' through other kids at GHS & CHS," references to Grapevine and Carroll high schools.

Later, the official wrote in reference to Mr. Cunningham: "Coach: Have names of students at Grapevine and Carroll that were shared with Coach by CHHS students."

Another participant in the meeting noted that the Heritage athletes had identified fewer players at the rival schools who were using steroids: "GHS, Carroll, {lt} players," followed by: "It was not passed on to police."

Grapevine-Colleyville spokeswoman Robin McClure initially said Monday that the names had been provided to Carroll and Grapevine officials.

Later in the evening, after checking with Mr. Cunningham about whom he had contacted, she said he had not passed the players' names on to either high school because the district considered the information "unsubstantiated finger pointing." She said Mr. Cunningham is the only person in the district who knows those players' names.

Julie Thannum, communications director for the Carroll district, said Monday night: "We will definitely do our due diligence and see what we can find out tomorrow."

The notes only referred to "players" at Carroll and Grapevine high schools. Ms. McClure said Monday evening that they were football players.

She said that Mr. Cunningham, who declined to be interviewed, told her Monday night that one of his players who confessed to using steroids had named one player from Carroll and one from Grapevine.

Ms. McClure said she was confident that the investigation in the Grapevine-Colleyville district would discover any steroid use at Grapevine High.

District officials called the Feb. 3 meeting to draft answers to questions submitted by The News about steroid use at Heritage. They released notes of the session and other documents in response to a request filed by The News under the Texas Public Information Act.

Carroll has one of the state's most storied high school football programs, with a state-of-the art stadium and indoor practice facility. It has won two state championships in the three years since it moved up to Class 5A, the state's largest classification. The school previously won three state championships in Class 3A.

Last season, Carroll also won the mythical national championship, finishing No. 1 in the National Prep Poll.

In October, Carroll showcased Texas high school football to the nation when it hosted Denton Ryan in a game televised nationally on ESPN2 from sold-out Dragon Stadium.

E-mail gjacobson@dallasnews.com

and gjones@dallasnews.com

CAV · February 22, 2005

Don't forget that SL Carroll also has the honor of being the best recruited high school team in the state!

Coach · February 22, 2005

It sounds like they are getting to the bottom of all this, which is good.

These are three of the highest average household income districts in the state, and even country....

OXatUNT · February 22, 2005

2 years ago Katy ISD here in houston volunteered to be a guini pig school district for drug testing for all students that do after school activities (i.e. band, choir, football, etc...) The testing includes stieroids. It looks like carrol needs this....