That's all well and good, but the high school athletes of the 7th District could probably better use the contributions of Roberts or of Orioles owner Peter Angelos to step up to the plate and donate money and resources to city high school baseball diamonds, many of which need massive upgrades just to get to a deplorable stage.
And it's not just the baseball facilities that need attention. For instance, the gym at Southside Academy is dimly lit, and it looked as if tumbleweeds were about to roll through by the City football-soccer field in late October.
Granted, first-class facilities seem like icing on the cake in a city school district so bereft of essentials for kids to manage the regular school day, much less extra- curriculars. Even with that said, we have an obligation to ensure that our athletes are as safe and healthy as possible. To that end, there are matters far more important to these kids than steroids.
Take trainers, for example. While every Howard County school has a trainer on duty, only a smattering of Baltimore County schools and none in the city have them. This is just a guess, but if catching steroid users is such a priority, one way to help would be to have a trained medical professional on hand regularly to look for warning signs.
And Congress, including Cummings, can certainly lend a hand to help athletes get the kind of physical exam that can catch pre-existing conditions such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the muscle wall that restricts the heart's ability to pump blood.
Just last week, Shannon Veal, a Louisiana high school junior, collapsed and died during her basketball game. She was later diagnosed with HCM, which wasn't caught during her physical because most of them don't include expensive echocardiograms, something the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee should have some interest in.
In case you're wondering, that's the committee Cummings sits on.
milton.kent@baltsun.com
