By Lynn Rosellini, March 2007

You don't mess with Texas football. But when Lori Lewis found needles in her son's room, she went on the offensive.

Lori Lewis never set out to be a crusader. All she wanted that day in September 2004, rummaging through her son Bryan's closet, was to locate a pair of jeans to return to the mall. Instead, she spotted an unfamiliar travel bag. Curious, Lewis opened it and found a vial of liquid and syringes. It felt like someone punched her in the stomach. She thought her son was doing heroin.

Calling a local pharmacy, Lewis was relieved to learn that the drug was an anabolic steroid. Then she got mad.
Why would Bryan be taking steroids?

"Why are you taking steroids?"
"Dude, your mum's looking for you." Bryan Dyer, emerging from afternoon classes at Colleyville Heritage High School in the affluent Dallas, Texas, suburbs, looked over to where a friend was pointing. There at the kerb, behind the wheel of her white SUV, sat his mother. She looked furious.
"Get home now," she said.

Bryan, almost 17 and a lanky 1,82m tall, had played quarterback on the junior varsity American football team the year before. He was an outgoing kid who made A's and B's. Like most boys in Colleyville, he favoured jeans, trainers, T-shirt and a peak cap pulled down over his face. His parents divorced when he was an infant, and he lived with his mother, stepfather, older brother and younger sister. Still, his dad, a former high school football star in nearby Arlington, had remained a presence in Bryan's life as he went through T-ball, Little League, peewee football, and on into high school sports. As for his mother, she and Bryan had been close since the divorce. But at that moment, he would have chosen to face a wall of linemen rather than her rage.
When he walked into the family room of their spacious home, his mum was waiting, vial and syringes in hand.

"Why are you taking steroids?" she demanded.
Bryan stared, unable to speak. "Mum," he said finally, "the majority of the team is on them." Bryan explained that he had hoped to make the varsity team. His coaches and his father urged him to bulk up. Creatine and protein shakes didn't help. So using money he had earned working at a local restaurant, he purchased a $200 (about R1200) vial of "Deca" – nandrolone decanoate – from a senior on the team. For five weeks he injected himself in the hip.
Lewis broke in. "What were you thinking?"
"Mum," he said, "coaches tell us to get bigger, stronger, faster. They don't tell us how. They just tell us to do it."

Like many parents of teenagers, Lewis was well-versed in the dangers of alcohol, inhalants, pot – even Ecstasy. All she knew about anabolic steroids was that they were illegal. Later, she went online, quickly learning that regular use can lead to liver damage, cancer, heart disease and other physical problems, plus emotional effects like depression and "roid rage".

Bryan stopped the injections when his back broke out in acne, another common side effect. By the time his mother found the vial, he had been steroid-free for months. But, Lewis wondered, how many other kids out there were taking the stuff?
"I'm calling the school!" she said.
"You can't!" Bryan insisted. "I'll be screwed!"
"Don't worry," his mother assured him. "Nobody will know it's you."

Texas football
T o understand what happened next, it's important to appreciate the huge role played by high school football in Texas. The state's football teams are regularly among the country's best. It's not unusual for 20 000 people to jam stadiums on Friday nights, while TV cameras roll. These arenas, rivalling some universities', can cost $20 million (R120 million), heavily funded by boosters who want to see their teams win. Successful coaches can earn six-figure salaries, and competition for these coveted positions is fierce.

From hardscrabble towns like Odessa – the setting for Friday Night Lights, the memorable exposé of high school sports – to the affluent Dallas suburbs, teen football heroes have rock star status. The pressure is highest at schools like Colleyville, which plays in one of the state's toughest districts. Two years ago, rival Southlake Carroll finished first not only in Texas – but in the nation. Many of the team's players got scholarships to play at powerhouse universities.

Not surprisingly, some athletes seek anything for an edge. Across America, between 1991 and 2003, steroid use in high schools more than doubled. In the 2004 Texas School Survey of Substance Abuse, over 41 000 Texas 7th- through 12th-graders said they had used the drugs. Many teens find them readily available through local dealers or online.

And since few schools test for steroids, kids don't have to worry about being discovered. "Other than paedophilia, it's the most secretive behaviour I've encountered," says Charles Yesalis, a professor who has studied steroid use for 28 years. Even school officials are in denial, he says. "If I had $100 for every time a coach or principal told me, 'It's a problem, but not in our school,' I'd have a Ferrari sitting in my driveway."

"What have I done?"
The day after her discovery, Lewis telephoned Colleyville's assistant principal, Ted Beal. She related Bryan's story, and Beal said he would check into it. A few hours later, he called back. There was no problem, football coach Chris Cunningham assured him.
"That's it?" said Lewis.
Without further evidence, Beal told her, there was nothing he could do. Lewis was livid. They want me to go away, she thought. This 40-year-old mother was no radical. Her political activism went no further than a stint on the board of the elementary PTA, and some campaign work for Colleyville's mayor and George W. Bush.

God knows, she thought, I'm all for high school sports. But I'm not for kids putting themselves in danger. How could it possibly be worth it? The next day, she called the Colleyville Courier.

Over the following week, Reporter Scott Price and Editor Charles Young gathered information from pupils, coaches and school officials. On October 1, the paper carried the story on the front page. Without identifying Lewis, Price wrote: "It did not take long to validate this mother's concerns. The Courier found knowledge of steroid use at all area high schools."

Within days, the Dallas Morning News was calling. By now Bryan wished he'd never heard of steroids. "It's no one else's business!" he shouted. "Why do you have to go public?" But once Lori Lewis set her mind on something, she rarely backed down. "This is going to save the life of somebody, somewhere," she told him.

In early February, last year, the Dallas Morning News headlined a page-one series, "The Secret Edge: Steroids in High Schools." Reporters confirmed substantial steroid use in North Texas high schools and devoted a lengthy article to a football player named "Patrick" – a pseudonym for Bryan.

Frantic, Bryan reached his mother on her cellphone. "Mum, they're calling me 'Patrick'," he said. His cover was blown. A local dealer was after him, he heard, and varsity football players were planning to rough him up. Someone left a threatening message: "I'm going to beat your ass!"

The school district's executive director of administration, Steve Trachier, had sent an e-mail to senior school officials in September terming Lewis's allegations "unfounded". Coach Cunningham called her a "liar". "You've got a crazy mum looking for someone to blame for her problem," he told the Morning News. (He later apologised publicly for his remarks.)

At night, Lewis lay in bed wondering, "What have I done?"

Lori's husband, Jack, was her biggest supporter, but he stayed in the background, shielding their 8-year-old daughter, McKenna, from publicity. Now even Jack was frustrated, calling Colleyville "Colleywood" for its backbiting ways. "People are judging you about things you did that were right," he told her. "You can't stop now!"

Nine athletes, most of them football players, eventually confessed to steroid use, proving their coach wrong. (There is no evidence that Cunningham or other coaches were aware of the drug use.) Still, Lewis had few supporters. Neighbours stopped speaking to her. Mothers of Bryan's schoolmates, whom she had known since their kids were 4 years old, cut her dead at the supermarket.

The final blow? She and Bryan weren't getting along. "Great, Mum, you've ruined my life!" he said. When the threats continued, they agreed he should transfer to a private school.

"I'm here to fight this epidemic"
Some 50km away in Plano, Texas, two people silently applauded Lewis. Don and Gwen Hooton took a special interest in the Morning News stories. The Hootons' 17-year-old son, Taylor, had committed suicide in 2003. A cheerful and gregarious boy, Taylor had taken steroids in an effort to improve his baseball game. He lapsed into depression after quitting, and his parents blamed steroids for his death.

Since then, Don Hooton has become a national spokesperson in the anti- steroid effort, crisscrossing the country to warn parents, coaches and kids. "You've done the right thing," he told Lewis. Stick to your guns, he said, but don't expect to make friends. In Hooton's own community critics attacked him in letters to the editor and spread false rumours that his son had been doing other drugs like meth and Ecstasy.

No more worrying what people thought. I'm not in a popularity contest, Lewis realised. I'm here to fight this epidemic. In late April, she filed a lawsuit charging Coach Cunningham with slander. A few days later, she testified before a legislative subcommittee in favour of a bill requiring drug testing of high school athletes.

In May, Lewis appeared before the Colleyville school board. And then, an extraordinary thing happened: the board unanimously approved random drug testing of pupils who participate in extracurricular activities. "It will not only serve as a deterrent," said a school spokesperson, "but will also reinforce that we will not tolerate drug use of any kind."

So far, no other districts in the area have followed suit. But Lewis does not intend to let the matter drop.

As for Bryan, he turned out for football at his new school – and quickly became the team's star wide receiver. He also plays cornerback on defence, and caught the eye of a recruiter from a university in Ohio. And he did it all without steroids.

"I'm better off now," he says. "And happier, too."