Father Convicted of Giving Son Steroids

Jim Gahan went to jail for giving son Corey, a skating prodigy, steroids.

ByABC News
May 28, 2008, 1:32 PM

May 29, 2008 — -- There is something special about Corey Gahan when he takes to the hardwood of the neighborhood roller rink.

Other in-line skaters give him room because Corey is still a champion there. Whipping around corners at more than 20 mph, he was once the fastest teen on skates.

Corey's talent was cultivated by a father who would stop at nothing to make him a world-class athlete, going so far as to provide his son with steroids, a decision that landed him in jail.

Jim Gahan home-schooled his son and was his training partner, business manager and physical trainer. Corey told ABC News senior law and justice correspondent Jim Avila that his whole life consisted of "sports, sports, sports" and "training, training, training."

"You really compromise your everyday childhood," he said. "I missed out on the whole experience of friends."

Corey says he and his father were "very, very close" and their hard work paid off when he won a world in-line skating championship at age 10, competing against elite athletes.

But when he was about 12, Corey says he could feel the relationship with his dad changing from parent to manager, even investor, and he felt burdened by adult responsibilities.

"He would experience glory from my success," Corey said. "Skating was a business and we had to succeed or things changed."

Before he entered his teenage years, the in-line skating prodigy became virtually unbeatable, winning competition after competition. But Corey wasn't just fueled by his father's encouragement; he was also fueled by chemistry.

"I definitely got bigger and I got stronger," he said. "These types of medications are so intriguing, because it's almost like an advance into the future. It's almost like a quick fix."

"My dad and a trainer would usually, at a gym or at my house, come into a room, and they would inject me in the butt," he said. "I had a lot of trust in [my father] and in the people I was around. So [I] really didn't, surprising as it may seem, think much of it."