By: Eowyn Weiss
A district court case investigates the tragic problems presented by performance-enhancing drugs often used in high school sports. This case explores neglect and culpability, telling the story of Genesis Hernandez, a teenage tennis prodigy whose abuse of anxiety medications, combined with PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs), ultimately led to her death.
Hernandez V. Hillside Valley Charter High School delves into the complexities of whose negligence caused the death of the young athlete. The defense seeks to prove that Katarina Hernandez was at fault for her daughter’s drug use. Katarina, Genesis’s mother, an ex-Olympic-level tennis player whose injuries rendered a career in the sport impossible, delivered a tearful account of the situation. Meanwhile, the plaintiff's desire to prove the school was at fault led to some tense questioning.
Varsity Tennis Coach Derrek Blazer of Hillside Valley Charter School, who overlooked two reports--one made by one of his players, Fiona Patel, the other by Katarina Hernandez herself-- was called as a witness for the defense, and said in his testimony, “As a coach at the school, I've developed the reputation of being very supportive but also stern.”
Among the many witnesses called to the stand was Mia Thompson, an education officer with a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Michigan. Thompson was Chief of Education for the district, and, during her cross-examination, revealed that Hillside had one of the lowest rates of PED use in the district, which was why they did not often pursue more rigorous drug programs. Thompson stated that “the investigation showed that the school was properly informing the parents and the students, who were also aware of the specific danger of PEDs.” Yet, after a rigorous cross-examination from the prosecution, she revealed that “there was no need for the school to do an investigation because there was no evidence,” despite Blazer’s two conversations concerning drug abuse among his players.
The state guidelines concerning drug testing and investigations could have been improved, but that wouldn’t have been cost-effective, according to Thompson’s affidavit. Thompson went on to insist that “If we had done these tests based off of a loose claim it would have been extremely harmful and detrimental to the students.” Confusion among the jury arose as to what, exactly, the death of Genesis was if not harmful and detrimental, a point best illustrated when the prosecutor asked, “A young woman is dead, is she not?”
The cross-examination of witness Dr Julian Perry, a forensic anthropologist who performed Genesis Hernandez’s autopsy, revealed the cause of death: the drugs Boldenone and Citalopram, a steroid and an anxiety medication, respectively. Perry described the injection of Boldenone as "difficult" and "precise,” and confirmed that Hernandez would have had to have been taught how to use such a drug by someone who also took it. “She couldn’t have done this completely on her own,” Doctor Perry insisted while on the witness stand.
After Genesis returned from a tennis summer camp she was reported to have become more aggressive, irritable, and anxious, all symptoms of the almost undetectable anabolic, androgenic steroid Boldenone. Genesis’s coach attributed this to the pressure put on her by her ex-tennis-player mother, Katarina, saying that “parents try to project themselves on their kids.”
This case was one of tragedy, confusion, the grief of a coach, mother, school, and the system itself, all of whose failure led to the devastating loss of a young life.