A shot of good news, By: David Teel
January 7, 2007
Good luck unearthing good news about steroids in sports. During 2006, the specter of performance-enhancing drugs shadowed football's premier pass rusher, baseball's aspiring home-run king, the Tour de France winner and the Olympic 100-meter champion.
And those were just the headliners. Even women's professional golf unveiled plans to begin drug testing.
But with college football set to stage its national-title game Monday, the NCAA's most recent test results are encouraging. During the 2004-05 academic year, the association's drug screens of athletes, purposely weighted toward football players, produced the lowest rate of steroid positives since the NCAA began random testing in 1996.
Officials at Virginia and Virginia Tech, the state's marquee sports programs, said none of their athletes has failed a steroid test administered by the school or NCAA.
"I would say 15 years ago, 10 years ago, I was probably more suspicious (of steroid use) than I am right now," said Ethan Saliba, the University of Virginia's head trainer. "It seems to be a very consistent development."
Still, athletes continue to evolve. Bigger, faster, stronger.
Today's tackles run like yesterday's linebackers. A strongman today is a weakling tomorrow.
Are fewer college athletes risking their health and breaking the law in quests for success, celebrity and wealth? Are they simply benefiting from advanced nutrition and training techniques?
Or, is testing too lax? And are more athletes avoiding detection with masking agents or growth hormones - for which there is no reliable test?
"I think we'd be very naïve to say that's not happening," said Mike Goforth, Virginia Tech's director of athletic training. "I don't know that college athletes have the money ($100 daily or more) to obtain ... growth hormones. I'm not as up on that as I should be. ... That's something I need to do and be more diligent about, because if it's not here now, it's coming."
Indeed, athletes have abused performance-enhancing drugs for decades, and no matter how sophisticated the tests or dire the warnings, many refuse to desist. Consider the 2006 climate:
In July a doctor was sentenced to one year in prison for distributing human growth hormone and steroids to Carolina Panthers players during their 2004 Super Bowl season; San Diego linebacker Shawne Merriman, the NFL's sack leader, was among a few pro football players to miss games this season because of a positive steroid test.
Also: Barry Bonds, No. 2 on baseball's career home-run list, remained the focus of the sport's far-ranging steroid scandal; Justin Gatlin, the reigning Olympic gold medalist at 100 meters, and Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone, merely the latest in their sports to be implicated.
Even as fewer college athletes were accused, the issue stained one of the NCAA's marquee institutions.
The Naval Academy revealed in November that two of its football players served steroid suspensions during the 2005 season.
Virginia and Virginia Tech randomly screen every athlete only for recreational drugs such as marijuana and cocaine throughout the year.
Citing expenses - adding a steroid element increases a test's approximate cost from $30 to $160 - the schools test for performance-enhancing drugs solely on suspicion.
Virginia Tech has ordered two steroid screens during the last five years, according to Goforth. Virginia shreds such records and cannot determine how many steroid tests it has mandated, Saliba said.
"If we start seeing a transformation, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it, where all of a sudden somebody's athleticism starts to show this rather phenomenal change, then we test," Saliba added. "I just have to have good confidence that we're still staying up with the folks who want to push the envelope."
Conversely, all NCAA screens include steroids. Contracting with the National Center for Drug Free Sport, the association tests Division I and II athletes year-round and in 2004-05 collected more than 10,000 urine samples.
The breakdown for each school: eight athletes from one randomly selected team and, if applicable, 18 football players.
The NCAA also tests randomly at championship events in Divisions, I, II and III. That program included more than 1,500 athletes in 2004-05.
Year-round testing is for steroids, diuretics and the stimulant ephedrine only. Screens conducted at championship events check for steroids and street drugs.
In 2004-05, the championship and year-round programs totaled 11,610 athletes, 51 of whom tested positive for steroids.
That rate, 0.44 percent, is less than half the rate (0.89 percent) from 2000-01.
Championship testing exposed two athletes for steroids, 17 for street drugs. The five-year totals for championship testing are 13 for steroids, 52 for street drugs.
Athletes who test positive for any banned substance in an NCAA screen are suspended one year.
Those nabbed by school-administered tests face varying penalties - at Virginia and Virginia Tech, suspensions lengthen with each positive result.
"I haven't seen or heard of steroids here, and I've never played against someone I thought was using," said Brandon Frye, who last weekend completed his fifth and final season on Virginia Tech's football team.
A 311-pound offensive tackle, Frye was screened many times by the school and NCAA.
"I don't think it's an invasion," he said. "If you're going to play sports, you're going to be subjected to the tests. It's not my place to say whether that's right or wrong. Those are the rules."
New federal rules have helped curb steroid use, according to Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's drug-testing administrator.
In January 2005, Congress reclassified steroid precursors, supplements the body converts into steroids, as controlled substances, taking them off the shelves of pharmacies and nutrition centers.
The NCAA has long banned precursors - androstenedione, the substance baseball's Mark McGwire used, is the most common - and lobbied for their removal from the open market.
"I would not discount that our efforts in testing and education are having an impact," Wilfert said. "But I would say they were certainly enhanced by the federal legislation."
Nearly 60 percent of those tested by the NCAA during 2004-05 were football players. They accounted for 36 of the 51 positive steroid results, 71 percent.
But the highest rates did not occur at the highest level. Division I-A football players mirrored all athletes at 0.49 percent. Division I-AA's positive rate was 0.63 percent.
"I've worked at the Division I-AA level, and I'm not sure you don't have a bigger problem at that level than you do at Division I-A," Goforth said. "You have players who weren't quite good enough (to make it at Division I-A) looking for an edge."
Baseball was the worst offender. Of 724 players screened in Divisions I and II, 10 tested positive, 1.4 percent.
Virginia baseball coach Brian O'Connor blames major-leaguers and believes their steroid abuse filtered down to colleges.
Gazing into opposing dugouts, he often wonders about players' sudden growth spurts.
"You hate to accuse somebody - maybe they did work hard," O'Connor said. "But there's always the thought in the back of your head that somebody took a shortcut. In our game, at the highest level, we let it happen, turned a blind eye, and now everybody's suffering the negative effects. ...
"I can tell you in my days as a player and coach I have never seen it with my own eyes. I also don't have my head stuck in the sand. I'm sure if it is prevalent in the major and minor leagues, I would imagine it exists in college baseball. ... If one person tests positive, then we're not doing enough to protect these kids. We have a responsibility to teach these young men and guide them in the right way."
Virginia Tech's testing and education efforts hit athletes the moment they walk into the Merryman Center training area. Mounted on the right-side wall is a 4-foot high, 3-foot wide summary of the athletic department's substance abuse program.
The billboard lists specific drugs, screening sensitivities and penalties for positive tests. Nearby hangs a poster for the NCAA's Hazelden Substance Abuse Hotline.
Goforth hopes to procure funding for more interactive education, using the Internet and wide-screen televisions. He said Virginia Tech spends about $18,000 on drug-testing; Virginia spends $90,000, according to Saliba.
"It's a shame we have to do it," Goforth said. "I really think there's a lot better way to spend our money. ... But if (the NCAA) really wants to put their money where their mouth is, they need to do more." The NCAA budgets about $4 million a year for testing, according to Wilfert. Most recently, the association expanded its year-round testing to the summer, traveling to athletes' homes or tracking them down at venues such as the Cape Cod baseball league.
"We know a large part of our deterrence is that anybody can be tested at any time throughout the school year," Wilfert said, "and now we've extended that throughout the summer.
"It's fair to say that we know we're not finding everyone who's using. But I think what we are doing is, we're contributing to an environment that helps the student-athlete feel a little bit more confident that they're on a level playing field, that not everybody else up against them is using." ?
