It all starts with a Dream.

The Dream begins to take shape when a player is barely old enough to fit into a batting helmet without it wobbling like a bobblehead doll. The shape forms into a certain uniform, a hallowed record or just a simple walk onto the field, in front of a roaring crowd, for one shot at glory.

The question is no longer whether a player can reach that dream, but how they will reach that dream.

The dream to play Major League Baseball is now marred with the issue of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. The steroid issue is affecting amateur baseball, say a Penn State professor and several college assistants, among others.

"I lose sleep over kids doing this stuff," said Charles Yesalis, professor of health policy and administration and exercise and sports science at Penn State University.

Youth baseball is affected by what Yesalis called a "waterfall effect."

Yesalis said the waterfall effect is that students at the junior high level understand what it takes to make the varsity teams, varsity students know what it takes to be a college ballplayer, and collegiate players realize what it takes to be a professional baseball player.

State College Area H.S. coach Brian Ishler agrees.

"It is more accessible today," Ishler said.

Ishler said college athletes come back from school and the students still in high school hear about what goes on.

"We like winners," Yesalis said. "Students know what it takes to get a scholarship or a multi-million dollar contract."

Dan Eck, a Penn State athletic trainer, said steroids are more of an issue for athletes who are going to enter professional sports straight out of high school.

"It is definitely an issue because of safety," Eck said. He said students often overuse amounts of performance-enhancing drugs.

Eck said athletes at most Div. I universities would be deterred from using steroids because of random drug testing procedures used at that level.

When recruiting future players, coaches try to do a thorough job of finding out about the personality of a player, Penn State assistant baseball coach Randy Ford said. Ford said this includes whether or not a player uses tobacco, alcohol or drugs.

Gino DiMare is an assistant coach for the University of Miami Hurricanes, a program that has won two national championships since 1999. He said he likes to think steroids are not an issue in college baseball because athletes are tested so often.

DiMare said there are random weekly drug tests at Miami. He said he has never come across a situation where a recruit has been suspected of using steroids, although he said it wouldn't be a problem if the university wanted to test.

DiMare said he was not sure of the legality of testing a recruit who isn't yet part of the university.

Yesalis, who has written two books concerning steroids and athletics, Anabolic Steroids in Sport and Exercise and The Steroids Game, argues that it is common sense why students would use steroids.

"The harder you hit it, the better chance of it going through," he said. "It just helps to hit the ball harder."

Yesalis said that steroids are a problem in junior and senior high school, and that many schools could not afford to pay for testing.

Ishler said most small schools could not pay for testing because the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association does not subsidize the tests.

State College Area is one of the schools that cannot afford to test, Ishler said. Eck said a steroid test could cost up to five times the amount of a regular drug test.

Melissa Mertz, an assistant executive director of the PIAA, said the organization discourages the use of nutritional supplements, but that there has been no discussion of PIAA-sponsored testing because it would not be right to mandate testing considering the expense.

Mertz said steroids are not something the PIAA hears about often, and that the issue would be addressed if there was a "big eruption" concerning the steroids.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association does not have many differences from the PIAA. Deborah Moore, an assistant commissioner at the OHSAA, said the state discourages anyone from distributing or encouraging the use of anabolic steroids or food supplements.

Moore said if there is evidence or suspicion from coaches or staff that a player has been using steroids he is ineligible until he can prove he is not using the drugs.

Usually the parents of students would pay for the test, Moore said.

While there is some argument over whether schools or or state organisations pay for steroid testing, one price for those who use steroids is for sure.

Those students pay for their dream.