Androstenedione -- The East German "Secret Weapon"

That's the sub-headline in Chapter Three, on Hot New Supplement Trends. Author Bill Phillips goes on to imply that the use of Andro helped Olympic athletes from the former sports powerhouse win medals and beat drug tests. He cites a "significant study" done in the U.S. on the substance, as well as German research that showed the use of Andro can raise testosterone levels 237 percent. Then, of the side effects, he writes, "It is not a drug; thus, it does not pose all the health risks of anabolic steroid use, such as liver toxicity, kidney stress, etc."

OUTSIDE THE LINES SERIES

As an online companion to the "Outside the Lines" television show that aired on Nov. 10, ESPN.com explored the controversy over Androstenedione, the muscle-building pills Mark McGwire popularized while setting the home run record. To find out about the use of the substance by ordinary athletes, ESPN.com Senior Writer Tom Farrey went to Alabaster, Ala., where Andro has replaced creatine as the favored supplement and a high school grapples with how to deal with the dilemmas these pills present. His online report ran Nov. 9-13.

The prose, replete with footnotes, convinced Pair he didn't need to further check out these claims.

"I figured if I go to the doctor, he's probably going to tell me, 'You're just wasting your money -- you're just going to have expensive pee'," Pair says. "You know, those are just the comments I expected to get. I really didn't want to waste my time going and hearing that negativity."

Depends which doctor he goes to. If it's Gary Wadler, a New York sports physician who consults for the U.S. Department of Justice on anabolic-androgenic steroid abuse, Pair would hear that teenagers who use Andro could have their growth stunted, and risk damage to their liver, heart and sexual reproductive systems. He'd hear that Andro can do the same kind of damage as anabolic steroids.

But New York -- heck, even Birmingham, 45 minutes up the highway -- seems so far away from Alabaster, one of those communities large enough to be connected to the rest of the world, but small enough to trust its own instincts. Sitting on a chair in the comfort of his living room, his parents behind him nodding their support, the Sports Supplement Review by his side, Pair, an honor student and offensive tackle at Thompson High School, figures he knows exactly what he's doing.

Who needs the opinion of some lab coat 1,000 miles away? Pair knows as well as anyone that there have been no studies detailing the long-term effects of Androstenedione use by athletes. Where he differs from the doctors is in that he's not willing to assume the worst.

THE PITCH
607k AVI QuickTime ESPN.com's Tom Farrey explains how the Thompson High players learned about Andro.

Instead, Pair prefers to see the upside -- and the necessity -- of using Andro.

"If it'll make you stronger, you have to do it, because there are so many kids in this generation that are 280, 290, 300 pounds on the high school level," says Stan Pair, his father, who introduced his son to Andro by getting him the supplement review book. "If you're 235, yeah, it helps you have an edge. You always want an edge."

Stan Pair had that edge once. At Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery in 1970 and '71, Pair won two state championships as a member of an offensive line that was the biggest in Alabama -- and weighed an average of 215 pounds. Now, this Friday, his son is hoping to play against a Pelham High School team with an offensive front that's as heavy as some NCAA lines. And Stan, an engineer with a large electrical company, plans to be in the stands, hoping his son holds up in the fourth quarter.

Damn right, Matt could use the testosterone boost.

"If we had it brought to our attention by a viable doctor, or set of doctors, or the NCAA, or anybody like that who made a real good argument that there are problems -- long-term -- with (Andro)," he says resolutely, "we'd stop today."

But the NCAA does ban it, he is reminded.

"Yeah, but they don't make a very strong argument on it," he says. "If they did, I think it would be banned everywhere else."

Pair's kind of thinking drives doctors like Wadler crazy, but they understand it. The most influential voices in the debate over Andro belong to companies that produce and sell supplements, thanks to a 1994 law that removed products classified as "dietary supplements" from Food and Drug Administration testing scrutiny. Taking full advantage of a specific provision in that law that allowed them for the first time to publish literature in connection with the sale of supplements, these companies have filled the Internet and consumer market with information that appears objective, but is actually advertising.

HIS MIND'S MADE UP
889k AVI QuickTime Jeff Vreeland says what he would tell doctors who say he could face serious health problems by taking Andro.

The Sports Supplement Review falls into that category. The author, Phillips, is CEO of Colorado-based Experimental and Applied Sciences (EAS), although no mention is made of the company on the cover of the book. It is organized as an industry guide and written in an authoritative manner, with a subtle pitch at the end -- complete with coupons -- to buy EAS products.

In the book, EAS quotes an obscure late 1970s German patent application that allegedly shows that when snorted, Andro may raise testosterone levels by 237 percent. However, the full report is not available.

And that "significant study" that Phillips cited? Outside the Lines obtained a copy of that report. It was completed at the Medical College of Georgia -- in 1962, on only four women, rather than hundreds, or even dozens, of subjects.

"I would give an 'F' to any medical student who used the scientific data and came to the conclusion that they came to," Wadler said. "I would give an 'F' to any doctor who treated patients, based on the utilization of the facts, the way those facts were twisted, distorted and turned." (Phillips did not respond to a request for an online interview).

Pair passed his copy of the EAS book on to teammate Jeff Vreeland, who also, like many other teenagers, turns to the World Wide Web for information. He went to the Yahoo search engine, which led him to what he believed was "a hospital site" that offered frequently-asked questions and answers about the safety and effectiveness of Andro.

OUTSIDE THE LINES POLL

In fact, upon retracing his steps with Outside the Lines on his computer in the basement of his home, Vreeland had reached a page on the official site of AST Research, which sells Androstenedione and other supplements.

Unlike Pair, Vreeland talked to his family doctor, who he says didn't know much about Andro, but more importantly, didn't stop him from taking it. So now, he keeps a bottle of pills in his locker at school, taking 200 milligrams in his third-period Creative Foods class, timing the release of the testosterone to coincide with his fourth-period class, weightlifting, an hour later.

Vreeland, like Pair, knows what the experts might say about his use of Andro. But as long as his coach, Ricky Seale, doesn't object, he says he isn't going to stop.

"The (medical experts) will say, 'Well, I don't think you should take Androstenedione because it could have the same side effects as steroids,' " he says. "And I'd tell them, 'Well, my bench max went up 30 pounds in two weeks and my squat's gone up 50 pounds and, well, the numbers prove themselves, buddy. Have a nice day. I'll talk to you later.' "

First, though, the school principal wants to chat.

Part II: Andro meets Alabaster
Part III: A modest proposal
Part IV: Upon further review
Reader reaction: To series, show, Andro issue.