Clemens to talk to coaches, but not about conditioning

[KFDM COOP]

Clemens to talk to coaches, but not about conditioning

The nearly 3,000 high school baseball coaches meeting in Waco, Texas, will still get their chance to listen to seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens Saturday, but the topic of his talk that was listed in promotional material and drew criticism across the nation has changed.

Before George Mitchell's investigation reported that trainer Brian McNamee injected Clemens with performance enhancing drugs, the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association's website listed Clemens as the last speaker at the convention. His 45-minute speech? His legendary workouts and his longevity.

Clemens' denials since the release of the Mitchell report didn't end the scrutiny the THSBCA faced about the appropriateness of Clemens discussing these topics with a group of coaches entrusted with guiding and shaping thousands of young players.

Now, Clemens will talk about "teaching and coaching," according to THSBCA president-elect David Sitton. "I was the one who came up with the original title for Roger. Now, he's going to do a broader definition than conditioning. If he gets questions and gets into his workouts, that's up to him."

Clemens is still on the roster, THSBCA president Jim Long said, because "In Texas, a man's word means something. All the other officers, all six of them, said the same thing."

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Long watched Monday's news conference, Clemens' first public one since the Mitchell report.

"After his press conference, which I wish everyone would watch the entire thing, there's no way we could conceivably say he couldn't come," said Long. "It's he said, he said."

Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, replied in an e-mail Wednesday, "From day one, the coaches have given Roger the benefit of the doubt, which is all Roger has asked of anyone."

Long, a high school baseball coach for 25 years, says he would not extend that same courtesy to everyone in the sport, especially not people posing as trainers.

"You want to trust them, but today I don't know if I would trust any trainer in the world to give me anything," said Long.

"If they ever wanted to inject me with anything, I'd say, 'No, I'm going to a doctor or a nurse,' especially if I'm making as much as these guys are making. I'd have too much to lose."

Brenham High, where Long coaches, has athletic trainers on staff who also teach classes. They have college degrees in athletic training and are prohibited from giving any medicine or injecting prescription drugs. "Meds have to come from a doctor," said Long, adding he only encourages players take vitamin C.

He hears about temptations to cheat. Long's players have gone onto college baseball and to the minor leagues.

"I've got two athletes in the minor leagues right now," he said. "We talk about things. They say they know some guys who are doing something they shouldn't do. They tell me, 'I don't mess with this. I've got too much to lose.' "

And so does a high school player from Texas if he's caught doping. Testing at the high school level is relatively new. Wednesday, University Interscholastic League officials in Austin announced they hope to conduct two rounds of testing before the end of the year. The Texas Legislature in May mandated tests.

The push for high school testing comes as a December survey, Monitoring the Future, shows a 2.8% increase in the proportion of 12th-grade males who see "great risk in trying anabolic steroids" compared to the past four-year interval. The authors of the study surveyed 48,025 students in 403 secondary schools, including 15,132 12th-graders. The risks and rewards are well established in the BALCO era: Steroid regimens combined with tough workouts help a pitcher throw a faster ball and a slugger hit a longer ball.

Clemens is not the only speaker who won't be focusing on the benefits of workouts at the THSBCA convention. No longer on this weekend's agenda is a speech by Dana Cavalea, full-time strength and conditioning coach for the New York Yankees.

"He had a conflict," said Long. "We're going to have another high school coach talk about middle-infield play."

[bulldog16]

Coop,

His talk was absolutely outstanding....He talked about teaching and coaching for about the first 30 minutes and then for about the last hour he took questions from the packed house that was attending..the questions mainly focused on his experiences in pro ball and things that we as coaches can teach our kids that we work with on a daily basis (pitching mechanics, workouts between starts, etc.) the whole thing was very informative, and was handled with the upmost professionalism and He was very cooperative.