Probably the best football story I have ever read is Shooting Star, by Fredrick McKissak Jr. It is a touching story that both reveals what steroids can do to your life, and meanwhile, still manages to include moments of triumphant glory. The novel begins with Jomo Rodgers, a sophomore strong safety on his football team, failing to win a battle for the championship trophy of the state. Being a nation-wide famous varsity team, written down in history many times before, the team goes into momentary depression. That is, until Jomo’s best friend, Jayson, the team’s star running back only in sophomore year, inspires everyone with a minimally-worded speech, followed with a group chant to pump the team back up into a positive state of mind. Meanwhile, Jomo fails to absorb the joyous emotions that fill the room. The teams head coach, Coach McPherson takes major note of Jomo’s seemingly effortless care for the team’s potential success, and along with that, his potential success with the team.
Here lies the temporary problem between Jomo and his coach, and even partially within Jomo’s self confidence and mental indifferences that grow between him and his friends and family. He needs a way to get him to the top. A path that will lead him to victory, even among his fellow players. His coach later assigns him a workout program to follow, instructed by a woman name Jeri who knows what she’s talking about, being a former professional biker. . After becoming one of the “Top 5 prospects” in the newspaper, along with his best friend Jayson, he realizes his spectacular potential. Although there was one negative about him that Jomo was hearing constantly: he was too small. At around five feet seven inches, and one hundred and sixty pounds, Jomo was a very small player, compared to his cohorts. Jomo knew that he didn’t have time for pointless workouts giving him minimal results. He needed something that would spark his body and send him rocketing through the competition. He was a small kid…but that just wouldn’t work for him.
Out of all his fellow football players, there was one who pretty much the entire team considered a “walking drug store.” His name being Casey Fitzgerald, everyone called him Fitzie. Fitzie had “the knowledge of every supplement known to man.” Because of Fitzie’s heavy involvement in muscle enhancers, Jomo guessed that Fitzie would even have connections to steroid dealers. He was right. Fitzie had connected Jomo to a dangerous, lying “skin head.” This punk’s name was Ganz, a man who could con anyone into becoming his permanent customer. He had so many tricks up his sleeve, that the only way Jomo was able to escape Ganz’s grasp of scams and traps was by attempted suicide, which obviously revealed his secret to his parents.
But before this, Jomo experienced the nightmarish life of what it is like to abuse anabolic steroids. He experienced a couple of the biological side-effects, like acne breakouts and rapid production/growth of sex hormones causing him to lose his beloved girl friend, Miranda. He also experienced other major impacts on his life from his steroid overuse, like “roid rage,” which ruined many of his relationships with other teenagers and relatives. His own uncle (who was also his boss) almost fired him from his luxurious job. He even got in a gigantic brawl with one of his former-buddies, Harper, except Jayson broke it up right before Jomo was literally about to kill him. So even though Harper was had the role of the “leader” of their former clique, once on steroids, Jomo could’ve easily overpowered him. As a matter of fact, the second Jayson got complete control of Jomo, Harper immediately dashed around the corner of the hallway, as Jomo fought his way out of Jayson’s tough grasp. Once free of Jayson, Jomo roared at Jayson, aggressively emitting a colorful vocabulary. So…all of these awful dilemmas are occurring throughout Jomo’s childhood, and in return for what? Big muscles? Because no one in the whole wide world should believe that tradeoff is actually worth it. Jomo’s family-life and friendships become torn apart as he completely undermines his father’s reputation and confidence. His beloved girlfriend storms out on him because of the steroids messing with his mind. And, of course, he clearly breaks the rules of his football league, by taking anabolic steroids. This book is a compellingly true example of what steroids can do to you, let alone the fact that anabolic steroids can have a numerous amount of other side-effects than the ones included in this breathtaking novel.
I really loved this book so much that I can definitely say that, without a doubt, this is by far the best novel I have ever read. I recommend it to anyone who has any involvement in sports, of course particularly in the famous sport of football. I give it a solid five-star rating.
Video:
- YouTube Video - Fun, but still informative video which includes Mario and Peach and the downsides of taking anabolic steroids. This video has been reviewed and used by High School Health classes for finals focused on drug abuse.
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