The national group Students Against Driving Drunk last week unveiled a program aimed at teaching student athletes about the problems associated with the use of the muscle-enhancing drugs known as steroids.
The program, to be called Student Athletes Detest Drugs, will ask athletes to sign a pledge not to use steroids and other illegal drugs. Robert Anastas, the founder of sadd, said the purpose of the new program is to use student athletes as anti-drug role models for others.
In a related development, the National Football League announced last week that players who tested positive for steroid use more than once would be suspended from play for a month. Third-time offenders could be banned for at least a year.
Meanwhile, a part-time physcial-education teacher at a suburban Denver high school was arrested along with six others for smuggling steroids from Mexico.
U.S. Customs officials described the capture of about $100,000 worth of steroids as the largest such seizure they had ever made. Jim Porter, the assistant special agent in charge of the agency’s Denver office, said there were “indications” that some of the illegal steroids were being distributed to high-school students.
The National Endowment for the Humanities will honor five individuals each year for outstanding contributions to the public’s understanding of history, literature, and philosophy, officials have announced.
The agency’s new prize is named for Charles Frankel (1917-1979), who had a distinguished career as professor of philosophy, State Department official, author, and host of a network-television program about ideas.
U.S. citizens who have brought the humanities to general audiences through books, public programs, museum exhibitions, films, television, and radio programs will be eligible to receive the $5,000 award.
In her recent report, “Humanities in America,” Lynne V. Cheney, director of the neh, called for recognition of scholars who produce high-quality programs for the general public.
Officials are inviting nominations for the first awards from state humanities councils, museums, libraries, historical societies, and other groups. The deadline for applications is Dec. 19, 1988; the first prizes will be awarded in March 1989.
