WILL PROFESSIONALS PLAY IN THE OLYMPICS?

USOC drug-test rule 'broadsides' Dream Teams The recent decision by the
U.S. Olympic Committee to end the exemption from random drug testing for
professional athletes could threaten the participation of American Dream
Teams in both Olympic hockey and basketball.

Under a resolution approved by the USOC's executive committee Friday, any
professional athlete who wants to be an Olympian will have to submit his or
her name up to a year in advance of the Games. The names will be put into a
pool of players used in the No Advance Notice program.

Whether a player is at home, at practice or at a game, an official could
appear and ask for an impromptu test aimed at detecting steroids and
steroid-masking agents. Executives from the NBA, the NHL and the unions
that represent their players were left bewildered this week by the USOC's
decision.

Officials from both leagues said they wanted details before commenting on
the specifics, but they expressed concerns on several issues: The privacy
of their athletes under new USOC guidelines, which will no longer grant
confidentiality to anyone who tests positive. The logistics of providing a
list of potential Olympians 12 months in advance. The issue of whether a
positive test under Olympic standards may be applied to a separate
punishment within an athlete's own league. The USOC action came with
little, if any, consultation with the leagues from its chief executive
officer, Scott Blackmun. What seems clear, however, is that if American
players in the NBA and NHL refuse to participate, they will be barred from
the Olympics.

"As far as I know, Scott Blackmun has never talked to Gary Bettman," said
the NHL's chief legal counsel, Bill Daly, referring to the league's
commissioner. "And Scott Blackmun has never talked to me. I've read that he
has approached the NHL Players Association, but I'm hard-pressed to find
anyone he has spoken to there.

I don't know where this is coming from. Obviously, we're willing to work
with whomever we have to work with to get this resolved.

But we haven't seen what they've done." "They've broadsided everyone," said
one NBA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They've thrown
down a gauntlet without giving anyone any details.

It's hard to tell if they are serious or if this is just a public relations
ploy."

While the USOC, which plans to meet with both the hockey and basketball
unions, may be flexible on some details, they are firm on principle, even
if it means alienating the Dream Teams.

"We are prepared, and this was discussed, to have some athletes refuse to
participate," Blackmun said. "If that's the case, we'll go on without them.
"I hope it doesn't come to that. But if we start to customize our
anti-doping policy to accommodate the Dream Teams, we're not being
consistent with our message."

In the past, American professional athletes, including minor league
baseball players who make up the Olympic baseball team, were tested only
after being named to the Olympic team. Now, they will be part of the same
12-month no-notice pool as nearly 8,000 other potential Olympians from
other sports.

Suddenly, NHL officials, who previously had until December to submit a
complete list of players for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City,
are not sure how to proceed.

"We have been proceeding down a path," Daly said, "to get all the drug
agencies and national associations on the same page with a protocol that
doesn't seek to evade random, unified testing at all, but that gives us a
set procedures that our players can be aware of in advance.

To get hit out of left field with something that says the players might be
subject to testing today when they don't even know if they're even going to
have anything to do with the Olympics - it's just hard to speculate on what
this means. "The USOC has been very vocal with respect to how this would
impact the NBA and NHL without having touched base with us. It may have
been presumptuous for them." The genesis of the USOC's approach stems from
its debacle in Sydney. During the Summer Games, a published report
disclosed that C.J. Hunter, the husband of the track diva Marion Jones,
tested positive for the steroid nandrolone two months earlier.

As Hunter denied that he knowingly took a banned substance, America's
testing system came under attack. "We had a lot of coverage in Sydney and
heard a lot of accusations that we were hiding on the drug issue, covering
up the ball and that we weren't sincere in our commitment," Blackmun said.
"A lot of people knew that wasn't true. But we had to ask ourselves: What
can we do differently?" As part of its effort to take control of the
drug-testing issue, the USOC's executive committee resolved to put
professional athletes from basketball, hockey and baseball under the same
drug-testing umbrella as the other Olympic hopefuls.

"We fully intend to talk to the player associations before we lay down a
hard and fast rule and put meat on the bone," Blackmun said. "But the
principle has been established."

The special treatment given to professional players in the past appears to
be over. The USOC is asserting its new authority in dealing with the Dream
Teams. When American NHL players ransacked their apartments in the Olympic
Village during the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, the USOC was powerless to
determine who the culprits were.

That incident has become one example of how the luster has rubbed off on
the Dream Teams. The U.S. basketball team, decorated with the NBA's big
stars, had its invincibility shaken when team-oriented international squads
nearly upset them at the Sydney Games.

As a result of various incidents related to the Dream Teams, it is hard to
predict whether the USOC will face a harsh public backlash should the pro
athletes decline to participate in the Olympic movement. "All we want is to
have everyone tested by the same standard," Blackmun said. "We want to a
system that is fair for everyone, no exceptions."