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NCAA Football and Steroids
While Major League baseball and its Commissioner Bud Selig remain in the crosshairs of the public and Congress over their continued steroid problems, America's real national pastime, football, is getting a free pass.
Why?
While both entities are monopolistic giants generating billions every year, the NCAA has realized the importance of a good public relations arm while baseball continues to struggle with that seemingly, innocuous notion.
More than three months ago, MLB asked their Players Association for a more stringent drug policy, including administration of the program by an independent expert and increased levels of punishment that would result in a lifetime ban upon a third offense.
Sounds impressive but while we are all still waiting for the typical Donald Fehr dodge and parry response, the NCAA developed a similar policy over a decade ago.
The dirty little secret that Fehr and his players dont seem to understand is the NCAA policy doesn't work and neither will MLBs. Stopping performance enhancing drugs in any sport is impossible and anyone who tells you different is a liar, a con man or both.
Human growth hormone is the current rage among the privileged in sports. While very expensive, it is not detectable in any test. Either are blood doping and at least a dozen or so other designer steroids.
Simply put, those who can afford those options can sleep worry free while struggling fringe players like a low level minor league baseball prospect are stuck using the detectable stuff.
Don't think so?
Consider this.... Dozens of Minor League players have been suspended by baseball's new program while only one notable player was nabbed, Rafael Palmeiro. No Bonds, No Giambi, No Sosa.
And Palmeiro was caught using stanozolol or winstrol. To the uninitiated, an easily detectable steroid that is cheap and likely tells us more about Raffy's IQ level that the seriousness of any drug testing policy.
While the NCAA deserves some credit for attempting to stunt use, their policy has been a system without teeth. The most recent NCAA figures show positive tests in about 1 percent of those involved nationally in random and bowl-game testing of football players, and that 3 percent of the athletes admit to steroid use.
Jason Scukanec, who played at Brigham Young and later on the practice squads of the Denver Broncos and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, says steroids are prevalent in many Division-I programs.
"I would bet my house you could find at least five guys on every Division I team in the country (using steroids),"Scukanec told the Portland Tribune.
"Over the course of my five years at BYU, I have concrete proof of 13 to 15 guys (using steroids), and I would suspect five others," added Scukanec. "And BYU is more temperate than most programs. I know other schools are worse. I would bet my house you could find at least five guys on every Division I team in the country (using steroids)."
Is Scukanec right? .
If teenage girls are taking steroids just to look good to their awkward suitors, what are the odds that a few of our comic-booked sized NCAA favorites are gassed? Common sense says pretty good but you wouldn't know it by the number who have been snared by the system.
When one famous study says up to 7 percent of middle school girls say they have used steroids and the NCAA says 1 percent tested positive, what does that tell you about its policy?
Since the 70s, football players have grown in ways that evolution and competent eating habits can't fully explain. The players aren't just bigger, they are faster, stronger and quicker.
As a society, we don't want to believe our heroes could be tainted. What the NCAA knows and baseball hasn't figured out is that if you jump through the country's public relations hoop you can go on doing exactly what you want to do.
The harsh reality is, no one cares and maybe, we shouldn't.
Ask yourself if you want to go back to the days when centers anchored the offensive line at 240 pounds or Thurman Munson won the A.L. MVP award with 17 home runs. If the answer is anything other that yes, get in line with the hypocrites that run Major Leagues sports.
For those who don't want to go back to the future and enjoy watching 330-pound tackles pull like bloated gazelles or 450-foot home runs, buck up, there is a significant minority that believe steroids shouldn't be banned.
Dozens of doctors believe it and the American Health Association and the Drug Enforcement Administration argued exactly that when Congress decided to make them a controlled substance in the early 90s. More importantly, there is not one significant medical study that has definitively linked steroids to any major medical problem.
Admittedly, more studies need to be done but if the dangers of steroids are proven to be a non-issue, there is no good reason to ban them. Anyone who romanticizes about an even playing field should root for this outcome.
Remember, enhancing performance is not necessarily a bad thing. If it were, we would ban all vitamins and supplements. Not to mention weightlifting and eating right, because all of those can significantly enhance one's performance.
If there are no health risks associated with steroids, the changing of any sports landscape could only be a positive and should be welcomed.
The steroid era is here and has been for thirty years.
We might as well embrace it.
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