MLB executive Coyles receives legacy award from Hooton Foundation

ADDISON, Texas -- Jon Coyles, MLB’s vice president of drug, health and safety programs, described it as a full circle moment in his career.

Coyles received the Taylor Hooton Foundation’s 2024 Legacy Award on Saturday night at the foundation’s All-Star Gala. Coyles has been the point person for MLB with the Hooton Foundation, a partnership that has helped the foundation reach more than 2.5 million children in sharing messages on the dangerous effects of appearance and performance-enhancing drugs.

“This is a relationship that is very, very important to me, and this award is really a highlight of my career,” Coyles said. “For me, the primary motivation to work with the Taylor Hooton Foundation was not only the compelling message, it was really the quality of the message and the level of sophistication they had on a very difficult subject matter.

“When you’re talking about drug testing, anti doping, anabolic steroids, you’re dealing with a lot of chemical terms and scientific methods and things like that. It’s very difficult to be able to explain and educate others on those topics. And, right out of the gates, this foundation was able to do that in a really effective way.”

Coyles, who joined MLB in 2007, recalled that forming a relationship with the Hooton Foundation was among his first significant assignments from Rob Manfred, then an MLB Executive Vice President. It came from the highest level as an initiative pushed by then-Commissioner Bud Selig and implemented by Manfred, who is now Commissioner.

Selig viewed MLB as a social institution, Coyles said, and there was a desire to help spread messages like the Hooton Foundation delivered. The foundation’s founder, Don Hooton Sr., was among those who spoke at the 2005 congressional hearings on the use of steroids in baseball. Hooton Sr. delivered an emotional and impactful message. His son, Taylor, was a 17-year-old high school student from Plano, Texas, when he took his own life on July 15, 2003, as a result of using anabolic steroids.

A day after the hearing, Selig called Hooton and the partnership between MLB and the foundation was born. Hooton recalled the conversation with Selig on Saturday, saying the former commissioner felt MLB had a “profound responsibility to the youth of this country” to make an impact on this issue.

Coyles couldn’t agree more and it’s evident in how the partnership has thrived in the years since under Manfred’s tenure as Commissioner.

“I love the line from Commissioner Selig: ‘MLB is a social institution,’” Coyles said. “Because not only are we focusing on the players and the games that we put on, but all of the fans and all of the kids and the youth that we reach. The message is different (to youth). We have to integrate and work with and collaborate with people that really know the space. The Taylor Hooton Foundation, not only are they very good at what they do, but they're really the only group that does this.”

Coyles went on to praise the Hooton Foundation for adapting and tweaking the messages to what is impacting today’s youth.

Similarly, under Coyles’ leadership, MLB has developed one of the most well-respected anti-doping programs in the world. Coyles pointed to the support everyone involved in the game has in making it as clean as possible, from the Commissioner’s Office to the MLB Players Association to players themselves advocating for fair playing fields.

“When I first started, we weren’t necessarily on the same page with respect to the drug program, performance-enhancing drugs and the like,” Coyles said. “Over the last 17, 18 years, that has been a complete shift. We work very well together. We don’t have a lot of disagreements in this space. We're very much on the same page.”

Coyles added that current and former players are the best messengers to speak out on fair play and ethical play in terms of resonating with the younger generations. In the end, that’s what this night was about.

“I'm a big data person, and we have seen through research that education on its own can deter behavior,” Coyles said. “At the pro level, things like discipline and suspensions kind of get the headlines sometimes. But, we know and we have confidence that education by itself can put people on the right path and inform behavior and deter behavior. So, for our youth athletes, for the foundation, their education is not only an important message, it's really effective.”

So effective, in fact, that Coyles made it clear how much MLB is committed to supporting the Hooton Foundation. He closed his speech by saying MLB is ready to commit another $500,000 to help the foundation continue its mission.

“We’ve accomplished a lot and I’m kind of viewing this as an opportunity to take a look back and see what we’ve accomplished,” Coyles said, “but also see what the future holds.”