Tom DeBlass Warns Youth Worlds Have a 'Scary' Steroid Problem
Tom DeBlass isn't a stranger to blunt takes, but his latest one lands harder than most: the black belt and gym owner says he believes some parents are putting their kids on steroids to win youth…
Tom DeBlass isn't a stranger to blunt takes, but his latest one lands harder than most: the black belt and gym owner says he believes some parents are putting their kids on steroids to win youth BJJ world titles. It's the kind of claim that's uncomfortable to sit with precisely because it's so easy to imagine being true.
What DeBlass actually said
In a recent Instagram post, DeBlass laid out a problem he says the sport doesn't talk about enough: "I truly believe there are parents out there crazy enough to put their own children on steroids just so they can say their kid is a world champion." He didn't stop at speculation about motive — he was explicit about who's on the other end of that decision. "We're talking about CHILDREN," he wrote. "Kids whose bodies and hormones are still developing. No medal, trophy, ranking, or title is worth potentially compromising your child's long term health," as reported by BJJEE.
He tied it to a second, related gripe: parents running their kids' social media accounts and posting as if the child wrote the captions themselves. Different symptom, same disease — an adult's ego wired directly into a kid's competitive results.
Why this isn't a new conversation, just a louder one
DeBlass is far from the first respected voice to raise it. Coaches like Greg Souders have been arguing for years that pushing kids toward "elite" development in BJJ too early edges into abuse, and youth sports generally — wrestling, gymnastics, swimming — have wrestled with parental overreach for decades. What's changed in Jiu Jitsu specifically is the scale of the stage. A generation ago, a kids' division at a regional tournament was a low-stakes Saturday. Now there are genuine youth world championships, streamed and shared, with junior athletes building public profiles and sponsorship interest before they're old enough to drive. Raise the stakes on a competition and you raise the incentive to cheat at it — that's true whether the sport is Jiu Jitsu, Little League, or junior tennis.
That's what makes DeBlass's post land differently than a routine anti-doping PSA. He's not describing a hypothetical. He's describing a mechanism: ambitious parent, developing kid, a title that confers bragging rights and maybe a path to sponsorship, and comparatively little testing infrastructure at the youth level to catch anyone who cuts that corner. Whether or not it's already widespread, the incentive structure he's describing is real, and it's not going away on its own.
What it means for the rest of us on the mats
Most people reading this aren't parents chasing a world title for their eight-year-old. But nearly everyone in BJJ is either raising a young grappler, coaching one, or training alongside one at some point, and DeBlass's warning is really a question about what we're modeling for kids at every level of the sport. Jiu Jitsu has always sold itself on delayed gratification — the belt system exists specifically to reward years of unglamorous mat time over shortcuts. A youth division built around producing "world champions" on the fastest possible timeline runs directly against that value, and it's worth noticing when a competitive structure starts pulling against the culture it's supposed to serve.
It's also a reminder that the adults around a young athlete carry more weight than the athlete does. A ten-year-old doesn't decide the family's competition schedule, doesn't choose their own coach, and definitely doesn't have the standing to say no to a parent who's decided a division needs to be won. If there's a problem here, it isn't a kids' problem. It's a grown-ups' problem, dressed up in a gi that's several sizes too small for it.
None of this means youth BJJ should be shut down or feared — the vast majority of kids' programs are run by coaches who care more about attendance and attitude than podiums. But DeBlass's post is a useful gut check for anyone around the youth competition scene: is this kid's Jiu Jitsu still theirs, or has it quietly become someone else's project? That question is worth asking long before steroids ever enter the conversation. See you on the mats.
Original report via BJJEE.