AHS Views

Ronnell Brandon, a student athlete at Harrisonburg High School, was recently accused of selling drugs to his teammates. Brandon supposedly sold drugs “to take away the pain of hits.”  Since it happened in Virginia and the pills were to take away pain, I’ll make a wild guess and say he was selling OxyContin.  It is alleged that 10 of his teammates used the drugs. If the law of averages holds true, at least two or three of the ten will need drug addiction help.

Authorities have confirmed that coaches had knowledge of the transactions. “It is also apparent that this information and knowledge was known by not only the players themselves but also several coaches of the Harrisonburg High School football (team),” said Harrison Police Sgt. Chris Rush of the Charge Gang Task Force in his affidavit.

The head coach, Tim Sarver, was tipped off on at least two occasions and apparently asked the player about it. Coach Sarver says he hears rumors every year. He also said he checked it out and the player denied it. Another coach, David Long, talked to Brandon and he again denied it. Let me think … hmmmm, a potential drug dealer lying to an authority figure about drug dealing. Shocking. Hopefully, the coaching staff wasn’t more concerned about winning than finding out if student athletes were on drugs. How many kids on that team actually need addiction help and their problem is being ignored to win games?

If you think this is an isolated incident of painkiller abuse in high school sports, well please wake up. Not only are many high school athletes taking drugs – in this school, the 10 players probably represent 20% of the team - a good percentage of them probably even need addiction help.

What does this mean for college and professional sports?  I promise it isn’t going to be a pretty picture. Parents of student athletes should be alert to the possibility of drug use, especially if your son or daughter is injured. This holds true for cheerleaders as well. You don’t want to be looking for addiction help services for your teenager.