Pittsburgh Steeler Steve Courson strode into the local Pittsburgh drugstore. Other customers gawked at Courson’s massiveness. It was 1982, and he had come to the pharmacy, without a prescription, to purchase anabolic steroids.
American Football
1970s: Players Discuss Rampant Steroid Use in the National Football League
Anabolic steroid use flourished in the NFL during the 1970s. Former players, such as Steve Courson and Joe Klecko, discuss the rampant use of these muscle-building drugs.
1970s: Alvin Roy was the Johnny Appleseed of Anabolic Steroids in American Football
Steroid use was inevitable in American football. But Alvin Roy, the Johnny Appleseed of anabolic steroids, did more than any other individual to hasten widespread adoption.
1960s: Steroid Programs for Football Players, Preps to Pros (Final in a Series)
Steroid programs were underway in the AFL along with the NFL, and at colleges and high schools in the early 1960s, as revealed by news evidence formerly buried in microfilm.
1965: Steroids for Football an Established Practice (Second in a Series)
Matt Chaney examines how anabolic steroid use became an established practice in American football with many users including Sidney Blanks, Ron Mix, Jack Stroud, Stan Jones, and others.
The Beginning: Anabolic Steroids Invade American Football (First in a Series)
Matt Chaney’s review of newly recovered newspaper evidence reveals a widespread national awareness of anabolic substances in American football as early as the late 1950s.