NCAA TRIES HARD, BUT COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING OF DRUG USE IMPOSSIBLE

The sequence of events is familiar: An athlete tests positive in an NCAA
drug test, and the excuses quickly follow.

As assistant director of sports sciences at the NCAA, Cindy Thomas has
heard them all.

There was the player who tested positive for marijuana and blamed his
girlfriend's tainted brownies. Then there was the mother who during an
appeal said she gave her child a cold medication. The child had tested
positive for a stimulant commonly found in pep pills.

ONE ATHLETE WHO had been administering veterinarian-grade steroids to
livestock later tested positive for an anabolic steroid.

"He must have stuck himself with the syringe," Thomas said.

It's laughable, because the excuses are so dimwitted. To get caught in the
NCAA drug dragnet is a case of being dumb or dumber. It's not that NCAA
sports sciences doesn't do its job, but with limited resources (a $2.4
million annual budget) and limited testing ability (less than 10 percent of
all athletes are tested), the NCAA can't catch everyone.

It is a noble pursuit, perhaps the best drug-testing procedure of major
sports organizations. The lofty goal is the "dedication to the ideal of
fair and equitable competition" according to NCAA literature, "
so that
no participant might have an artificially induced advantage."

The NCAA started drug testing at its championships in 1986. It started
year-round testing in 1990. Since then, the overall positive rates have
stayed constant -- one to two percent per year. Don't let that ratio make
you believe that all is well.

"The numbers do not reflect usage," Thomas said.

THE NCAA FACES THE SAME roadblocks as the International Olympic Committee
or Major League Baseball. It can't follow everybody all the time.

Typically, 10,000-12,000 NCAA athletes are tested each school year. That's
out of a total of 250,000-300,000 athletes nationwide. Even those who get
tested receive a tip-off. During random year-round testing, athletes
usually have at least 24 hours notice before an NCAA crew shows up on
campus. Random testing is a certainty at every championship, including bowl
games. Throw in the numerous masking agents and test-beating tricks and the
detection rate decreases further.

It is the NCAA's version of an open-book test. Shame on you if you get caught.

"Logistically, I don't know of another way," Thomas said. "It is a
deterrent. If you look at trends, anabolic steroid use has gone down since
we started testing."

Steroids were the main focus when testing started, but the list of banned
substances is now 77. And athletes had better know them all or find out
before taking any nutritional supplement or drug. Thomas' mantra is
preached constantly from her seventh-floor office in Overland Park, Kan.

"Ignorance is not an excuse."

There are new performance-enhancing trends to consider in the 1990s,
according to the NCAA's latest study on the subject, completed in 1997. The
use of marijuana by all athletes and amphetamines by women is up since
1993. Steroids are down, but they are being used earlier -- in junior high
- -- than in any previous study.

TESTOSTERONE, THE MALE HORMONE, is particularly hard to track. Its
synthetic version is so hard to distinguish from the real thing that the
NCAA's main testing labs at the University of Indiana and UCLA have only
recently started using carbon isotope testing to isolate the fake male
growth hormone.

While its net has many holes, the NCAA is keeping a cap on drug use. The
threat of a test should always be in the back of the minds of athletes.
Thomas speculates that initially there would be a high percentage of
positives in Division III football because the sport isn't tested on a
year-round basis. But it is subject to championship testing. Only seven
percent of Division III institutions test for drugs (10 in all) according
to an NCAA study.

"I think you'd see a huge increase in the beginning until they were
educated," Thomas said, "educated about when to cut out use or 'I'm not
going to use' because it is a deterrent."

A number of schools and conferences also test, adding another layer of
scrutiny. But the NCAA tests only Division I and II football players and
Division I track athletes during the season. The NCAA Committee on
Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports has proposed an
expansion of year-round drug testing to include baseball, swimming,
wrestling and Division III football.

The penalty for a positive test is stern and swift -- a one-year ban from
competition. That's more than can be said for other sports leagues that
begin only with a warning or a lighter suspension.

"A lot of blame has to be directed at the major sports federations," said
Charles Yesalis, a noted epidemiologist at Penn State. Yesalis has written
two books on steroid use and is a widely quoted authority on drug testing.
"I really question the sincerity of these groups about solving these
problems. What's their ideal world for them? Their ideal world is to break
a whole bunch of world records and have a whole bunch of superhuman-looking
athletes.

"ONE OF THE REASONS I have not beat up on the NCAA much is that they've
been very forthcoming about the frailties of drug testing. They just come
out and say, 'We do the best we can with the technology we have
available.'"

Consider that the NCAA's available technology is world-class and you begin
to see the uphill battle faced by all drug-testing sports organizations.
The NCAA uses the labs at Indiana and UCLA. The NFL, International Olympic
Committee and other groups also use those labs.

But there is an underground test-beating network that advances faster than
that technology. For example, there are patches and creams that transfer
testosterone directly into the skin. No needles, no teaspoons. If dosage is
monitored correctly, athletes can stay within acceptable limits and still
gain performance enhancement.

Female athletes, Yesalis said, have been known to insert an artificial
bladder containing clean urine samples into their vaginas. Men have been
known to insert catheters directly into their bladders to deposit clean
urine.

The black market is also a problem. The Internet sometimes seems like a
carnival barker with a plethora of web sites advertising legal and illegal
substances. One site got the NCAA's attention recently when it began
e-mailing wrestling and football coaches marketing GHB, a substance banned
by the FDA. Thomas said it has been known to cause seizures, respiratory
arrest, coma and death.

"ANYTHING I'M SAYING NOW is no longer controversial," Yesalis said. "All
you guys know that drug testing leaks like a giant sieve. When I was first
being interviewed in '86 and '87, I'd sit down and explain to journalists
how people get around it. Now I've got journalists who know more about it
than I know."

The NCAA forges on. Frank Uryasz is the well-respected director of sports
sciences. The NCAA drug-testing policy is his baby. Over the years he has
helped assemble a list of 31 stimulants, 21 anabolic agents, 18 diuretics,
three street drugs and four peptide hormones that are banned. The list goes
right down to smokeless tobacco.

Hot spots? Supplements such as creatine are legal but largely an unknown
because no long-term studies are available. Several other acceptable
nutritional supplements at health food stores have as their ingredients
banned substances. An athlete might be taking what he believes to be a
legal substance only to wind up with a positive drug test.

It's not all about steroids, either. As mentioned, a recent survey of
13,914 NCAA athletes showed that steroid use had declined while the use of
amphetamines is up almost across the board. The NCAA recently added
ephedrine, a stimulant, to its banned list.

The NCAA isn't alone in its crusade. In addition, 43 percent of 469 schools
that answered the organization's most recent survey drug test on their own.
Both the Big 12 Conference and North Carolina's university system have
comprehensive drug testing for their schools.

It takes a commitment of more than money for schools to drug test. It's
easy to rely on the NCAA, but schools like Montana go a step further in
adding their own programs. The cost: a paltry $5,500 per year.

"A SCHOOL HAS TO MAKE A commitment to the process," said Dennis Murphy, the
head trainer at Montana. "It's a pain. It's not a fun thing to do.
Collecting urine is not a pleasant thing to do. Following the chain of
custody is not a pleasant thing to do. We feel it's important
educationally."

The job of testing for drugs is not glamorous. Thomas oversees a nationwide
group of 70 crew chiefs in approximately 30 cities to administer tests at
approximately 350 schools per year. The crew chiefs are typically made up
of medical personnel who are basically volunteers. Athletes are required to
urinate in front of the testers in order to make sure the sample is pure.

The volunteers have to love their work. For their trouble, they are paid a
per diem and what Thomas calls "a small honorarium."

The process only begins there. Once delivered, samples must go through a
complicated chain of custody and protocol procedures at the labs to make
sure they are tested accurately.

But just as quickly as the NCAA labs can update their equipment, cheaters
are out there developing new drugs and ways to beat the test.

"That's because so many drugs have changed," said Craig Kammerer, who
helped set up the UCLA lab before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. "I
wouldn't say they are any closer (to catching all drugs). They have done a
tremendous job on some of the older ones, but people have shifted out of
those."

THERE HAVE BEEN SIGNIFICANT legal challenges to the NCAA's procedure. In
1991, Montana offensive lineman Steve Premock alleged that the UCLA lab had
mishandled his positive sample. He obtained a court injunction and was able
to play his senior year. The California State Supreme Court upheld the
NCAA's ability to drug test in that state in 1993. Southwestern Louisiana's
Pat Brennan tested positive for testosterone but got a favorable court
ruling and was able to play his senior year in 1995.

As a whole, though, the NCAA's drug-testing machine is more streamlined
than ever. It hasn't had a legal challenge of note since the Brennan case
and only seven overall in 12 years.

"I think the NCAA goes out of its way to try to do things right," said
Kansas City attorney Jack Kitchin, who has worked with the NCAA on several
of the cases.

That's all that can be asked when there is only one excuse for getting
caught. Ignorance.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)