NCAA drug program fosters compliance
Drug testing.
This is something that has created quite a stir in the professional sports world, especially in Major League Baseball following the comments of now-retired player Jose Canseco.
However, it is easy to overlook drug issues at the college level.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has a program to curtail the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
The fact is, drug testing is not limited to professional sports.
According to the NCAA Drug-Testing Program, found on the NCAA Web site at www.ncaa.org, a program has been in place since 1986. This program has been revised several times since then and lists the restrictions and agreements collegiate athletes must consent to before competing in their respective sports.
Most importantly, the program has served as an effective deterrent for the use of substances banned by the NCAA Executive Committee, said Lucy Stolpe, compliance coordinator at Utah State University.
“I think that athletes are beginning to understand that taking drugs is not an acceptable alternative,” she said. “If they’re trying to bulk up, they need to do it the real way instead of artificially.”
Inside the NCAA Drug-Testing Program is a list of more than 80 substances banned by the NCAA, ranging from anabolic agents to stimulants to street drugs.
Because USU Athletics is Division I, Aggie athletes are subject to random, year-round drug testing in certain sports and random drug testing in NCAA post-season events in all sports.
According to the program, all Division I and II football programs, Division II baseball programs, and Division I men and women’s track and field programs are subject to year-round testing.
Dale Mildenberger, assistant athletic director for Support Services at USU, said more NCAA-sponsored sports would probably be open to year-round testing if it weren’t for the high costs associated with the testing procedures.
“Mainly, it’s probably because of finances,” he said. “It’s quite expensive for these programs to be implemented. I think [the] focus on those divisions and sports probably has more to do with NCAA television appearances and the image that those sports have.”
Expensive indeed.
The NCAA spent $2.9 million during the 2001-02 academic year on what the year-round drug testing section of the NCAA Web site called “administrative, collection and laboratory costs.”
When asked how often USU football and track and field athletes are tested, both Mildenberger and Stolpe said about once a year – maybe even twice a year for football. Drug tests are administered by the National Center for Drug Free Sport in conjunction with the NCAA Executive Committee and are conducted on university campuses.
However, this does not mean the entire team is tested, Mildenberger said.
“The players are individually and randomly selected for the tests,” he said.
The university is also given little notice to when the tests are carried out, Mildenberger said. This prevents drug-users from purging their systems before the tests are administered, he said.
“We’ll get a fax notification that the [testers] will be here within 48 hours,” he said. “At that time, we have to supply them with a current roster of the team.”
While individual athletes are randomly tested, several factors, such as “playing time” and “positions,” help determine who is tested, according to the NCAA Drug-Testing Program.
Former Aggie football player and track and field standout Tyler Olsen said this was evident in his playing days at USU. Olsen has since exhausted his eligibility in both football and track and field. He said James Parker, a nine-time All-American in track and field at USU, was tested at least three times as an Aggie.
On the other hand, Olsen said he was never tested in either sport.
“In some schools, like Florida or Nebraska in football or Oregon for track … their whole team probably gets randomly tested, whereas here [at USU] it is mostly certain individuals,” he said.
A positive test on an NCAA drug test comes with a stiff penalty. Student athletes who test positive “shall remain ineligible for all regular-season and post-season competition during the time period ending one calendar year,” according to the NCAA Drug-Testing Program.
If an athlete were to test positive again upon reinstatement for any drug other than a “street drug,” such as heroin, he would be banned from collegiate athletics, Stolpe said. A positive “street-drug” test would result in the loss of another year of eligibility, she said.
Although student athletes from the three sports open to year-round, on-campus testing are more likely to be tested than those from other sports, Mildenberger said athletes from other sports are not exempt.
In fact, any collegiate athlete competing in an NCAA championship in all three divisions, plus those playing in college football bowl games are also subject to drug tests, Mildenberger said.
“Any time throughout that championship, whether it’s [the] first round or second round or whatever, the team may be subject to testing,” he said. “This does not mean that every player on every team gets tested.”
As far as the actual drug test goes, the student athletes are not given much privacy.
According to the NCAA Drug-Testing Program, a “crew member” of the National Center for Drug Free Sport watches the student athlete give a urine sample to make sure it hasn’t been tampered with.
In turn, the student athlete who was tested is present when the “crew member” seals the urine sample. This ensures honesty by both parties, Mildenberger said.
“It is a chain of custody that will withstand judicial review,” he said.
Olsen said while the lack of privacy is a little unsettling, the sampling process is a necessary evil.
“I think it is necessary, because I’ve heard of methods that people will use to pass it [the drug-test],” he said. “I know this sounds crude, but I’ve heard people will inject themselves with other people’s urine, just so they test negative.”
Unfortunately, many student athletes aren’t aware even legal, over-the-counter supplements and products contain substances banned by the NCAA, Stolpe said. For this reason, it is imperative they find out about these products and inform USU student athletes, both Stolpe and Mildenberger said.
“Even a doctor’s prescription – they need to understand that those can cause them to test positive on an NCAA drug test,” Stolpe said.
It is this emphasis on education that Mildenberger said is a direct result of a decline in positive steroid tests (8.4 percent to 3 percent) from 1985 to 2001.
“The education process by the NCAA and member institutions are probably more responsible for declines in the use of steroids than the threat of testing,” he said.
As far as USU goes, Stolpe said the university hasn’t had anyone test positive on a drug test in her nine years at USU. She said she credits this to the integrity of USU coaches and the values of the community.
“The coaches intentionally try to recruit people who are not going to be a problem,” she said. “We haven’t had drug problems in our programs. We’ve had a couple of suspicions of things, but not any that have shown positive on an NCAA test.”
This same commitment to keeping student athletes clean is something the NCAA has made a concerted effort to fulfill, Stolpe said.
“They’re very committed to this program,” she said. “They work very hard to have what they refer to as a ‘level playing field.'”
-jasonwturner@cc.usu.edu