*This article appeared in the 2008 joke issue.
Steroids' hulking shadow now looms over the Ivy League.
The long-awaited Bilsky Report, launched by Penn Athetic Director Steve Bilsky, was released yesterday, naming almost 50 Penn athletes with ties to performance-enhancing drugs.
Notable athletes on the report were second baseman Steve Gable, whose batting average has jumped 250 points this season; women's hoops' 6-foot-2 forward Maggie Burgess, who grew eight inches in the week prior to the Quakers' season opener; and gymnast Marissa Rosen, who once beat Mark Zoller in an arm-wrestling match.
"I have never used steroids. Period," Gable said at a student government hearing. "I don't know how to say it more clearly."
Gable's transformation from a light-hitting infielder to the centerpiece of the Quakers' offense had turned many heads around the Penn baseball community, but those close to him never had any doubt he was using steroids.
"I have a hard time telling you this because Steve is such a beautiful, humble guy," a source told the DP on condition of anonymity. "But he would say to me, 'Armeny, I am doing steroids. And I love it.'"
The source said that Gable's behavior trained drastically in the weeks leading up to the season. Where he once saw a doe-eyed freshman, there was now a brutish, oversized hitting machine prone to fits of rage.
"He once flipped out during BP, and he kept yelling gibberish, like 'I'm hungry, baby!" the source said. "It all ended with him snarling and chasing [reserve Indian infielder] Raj Paty around the outfield with oversized silverware."
While Gable's inclusion in the report was expected by many around the Penn athletic community, other implications came as more of a surprise.
Burgess, for example, was said to have been secretly fed human growth hormone by coach Pat Knapp, who was desperate for a dominant post presence.
"I just whisked the hGH right into her rice pudding, and you saw what happened," Knapp said. "We were going for two inches [of growth], maybe three. God help me, does that girl love rice pudding."
And Sebastien Angel added about Burgess, "I was obsessed since the moment I met her."
Rosen, one of Penn's all-time best gymnasts, has been using performance-enhancing drugs for years and since the release of the report has spoken openly about her abuse.
"I'm so jacked, when I do the pommel horse I beat up a thoroughbred. I'm so jacked, the uneven bars were even before I got to them," she said. "How did you think I got this bod, by drinking milk and eating spinach? It's all about the 'roids."
But the Bilsky Report didn't end there: While the men's basketball team was mostly left off the list, wiry Jew-guard Aron Cohen called a press conference to address his steroid use.
"I've been using this stuff all my life," the 6-foot-4, 125-pound junior said. "I do it all. Power bars, 'roids, all of it. That's whycome I'm so cut."
However, recent reports are saying that Cohen's self-implication was a hoax. "He just wanted to fit in," teammate Kevin Egee said. "Just be nice to him, OK? The poor guy is having a hard enough time making friends as it is."
Hoax or not, the onus has now been placed on Penn coaches to extinguish the problem.
"A call to action," baseball coach John Cole said, raising his right index finger. "Gonna act."
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