THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9506300166
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
EXCUSE ME while I daub my eyes with a hanky.
I have been shedding tears of laughter over the outrage expressed by my liberal friends over the recent Supreme Court ruling which held that a school district in the town of Veronia, Ore., could give drug tests to student athletes. They are concerned about violations of athletes' privacy.
Excuse me, when did privacy became part of the high school athletic experience? I remember high school locker rooms from my sports days:
Jocks running around with towels popping naked teammates on the butt, toilets without partitions or doors, foul odors everywhere, guys wrestling naked on the shower floor, scrapping over a bar of dirty soap.
As Justice Antonin Scalia wisely observed: ``School sports are not for the bashful.''
A 12-year-old student who wanted to play football but didn't care to whizz into a urine bottle was responsible for the ruling, which has put liberals in a funk.
The student's parents - Wayne and Judy Acton - refused to sign a consent form for the school district's athletic drug testing program. They sued, arguing that the constitutional rights of their son, James, had been violated.
A little background on the case is helpful. According to the record, the school district where James Acton was enrolled was one in which student rebellion, fueled by drugs and alcohol, had reached epidemic proportions. Drug use was rampant in the district. And athletes were not only involved with drugs but also deemed to be leaders of the drug culture.
When the school officials considered establishing a drug testing program, the district's parents gave their unanimous consent to the program at a meeting.
Invasions of school children's privacy have been legal for a long time. Children are vaccinated for diseases before they are eligible to enroll in public schools. And other freedoms are rightly taken from school children that would be protected by law if they were adults, including freedom of movement and freedom of speech.
Public school athletes are required to endure an invasion of privacy - a probing physical examination by a physician - prior to participation in sports.
So the Acton family's concern for their son's constitutional rights seems exquisitely sensitive, if not fatuous.
Let us waste no sympathy on James Acton. The Veronia, Ore., school officials have adopted a policy that could well save Acton's life or those of his teammates. The death rate for athletes who use drugs is far higher than that of the general school population.
If combating drug use, particularly among a high-risk group like the athletes of Veronia is not appropriate for school officials, I can't imagine what would be.
Forget Acton's privacy. I remember the evening they poured Absorbine Jr. on my athletic supporter a few minutes before the game. Talk about violating my constitution . . . I was moving so fast all my warm-up shots missed the backboard. by CNB