Scoring Off the Field

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr

The athletically gifted are different from you and me. As children they rule the sandlot and playground. While most kids pray they are not the last picked by the shirts or the skins, it is the natural athletes who do the choosing. Late in high school, the best are wooed by colleges offering scholarships, special treatment and maybe a nice set of wheels. A happy few make the jump from big man on campus to major-league pro. Most start with salaries in six figures -- not bad for a 22-year-old who, chances are, did not earn enough credits to graduate. In the popular imagination, the great pros are elevated to a status they share with only a handful of movie stars and Kennedys. Theirs is that realm beyond celebrity: American royalty.

That is what makes the growing problem of drugs in sports seem so insidious, and why each new disclosure about a career destroyed or an athlete dying young comes as such a head-snapping blow. In an era so stingy with heroes, the fall of sports stars to the lure of cocaine and other narcotics has helped spur the growing national concern about drug abuse. It has also prompted college and professional sports officials to search for new ways to crack down on the illicit indulgences of those who are supposed to serve as exalted role models.

Both the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the National Football League have announced sweeping plans for mandatory drug testing. The N.F.L. Players Association has challenged Commissioner Pete Rozelle's authority to carry out such a program; with the players back at training camps and the season set to begin in three weeks, the matter is expected to be resolved by mid-September. As college athletes return to their campuses, the N.C.A.A. is preparing a widespread testing program for so-called recreational drugs, including cocaine and marijuana, as well as for such performance-related drugs as amphetamines and steroids.

The pileup of revelations about drugs in sports raises issues beyond the propriety of testing. Big-time university athletic programs have come under fire for allegedly placing sports competition -- and the revenues it garners -- ahead of educational ideals. In professional sports, the big leagues may be in danger of alienating fans permanently if the perception grows that players are unable or unwilling to tackle the drug problem. "We have to restore public confidence in the game," says Don Shula, head coach of the Miami Dolphins. "We must do everything possible to show fans that the game is drug free. This is a battle we have to win, and the players, coaches and owners must join together to win it."

During this summer, a number of incidents focused attention on the problem of drugs in sports and, in doing so, have become a catalyst for confronting the problem in society as a whole. Among them:

-- Less than two days after being selected first by the world-champion Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association's college draft last June, University of Maryland Superstar Len Bias, 22, died of cocaine intoxication. A grand jury investigating his death has already indicted several of the young men who were with him on the last night of his life. The jurors last week began looking into a range of broader questions about the pervasiveness of drug abuse on the Terrapin team and the manner in which the university and Coach Lefty Driesell administered the varsity basketball program. The university responded last week with a number of reforms in the basketball program designed to better the academic performance of players.

-- Just eight days following the Bias tragedy, Cleveland Browns Safety Don Rogers, 23, died of a cocaine-induced heart attack. A member of the N.F.L. All-Rookie team in 1984, Rogers consumed his deadly overdose the day before he was to marry his college sweetheart.

-- In July three star players of the University of Virginia football team -- including Barry Word, former tailback and 1985 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year -- were charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to distribute cocaine. They join 21 other individuals who have been indicted as part of a drug ring dealing coke in Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and Florida. The gridiron trio accounted for more than 56% of their team's points last season. Today they each face a maximum sentence of a $250,000 fine and 16 years in prison.

-- Steve Howe, 28, once a dazzling pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was released from the minor-league San Jose Bees after tests showed traces of cocaine in his urine. The National League Rookie of the Year in 1980, Howe was dropped by the Dodgers last year because of his coke addiction. He is now on the ineligible list for all minor-league teams.

Some in the sports world argue that drug abuse among athletes is simply a reflection of a national problem. Harry Edwards, a sports sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who predicted back in 1981 that drug use would become a "big catastrophe" for athletes, theorizes that the U.S. has in effect become a "high" society. "The inescapable image emerges of a nation consumed in drug taking, both legal and illicit," says Edwards, adding: "The fact that we have by tradition placed our athletes upon a pedestal does not elevate them above prevailing cultural tides." University of North Carolina Basketball Coach Dean Smith agrees: "What we're seeing in sports is a by-product of what's going on in society."

Many young athletes today belong to a generation in which drugs are casually accepted. By the time they enter the high-stakes sports world, it is more than likely that a number of them have experimented. Says Edwards: "Len Bias and Don Rogers may constitute only the first wave of tragic drug-abuse casualties from within the ranks of athletes who have matured with the drug counterculture and with big-time sports."

Drugs first entered sports after World War II, when athletes began stimulating themselves with amphetamines: pep pills, uppers, bennies, dexies, speed. The conventional wisdom was that these would delay fatigue, reduce pain, build self-confidence and increase aggressive play. In the late 1950s and '60s, the use of androgenic-anabolic steroids came into vogue. They were originally prescribed for geriatric patients and people recovering from debilitating accidents or illnesses. Weight lifters and body builders soon discovered that the drugs could speed development of strength and muscles. By the '70s, steroids use was so widespread in football, weight lifting and field events like the shot put that competitors who did not take the drugs were considered to be at a disadvantage.

In many cases, coaches and trainers strongly encouraged the use of such drugs. Today, however, they have fallen into disrepute because of their detrimental side effects. Amphetamines can cause acute psychoses and a rise in body temperature that can lead to heat stroke; steroids are believed to cause enlargement of the prostate gland, liver damage and testicular atrophy resulting in sterility. Yet, Edwards contends, "sports organizations may have contributed to creating a climate for recreational drug use among athletes by indulging, if not fostering, what amounts to a pharmaceutical haven in the locker room."

Indeed, if uppers were considered legitimate for enhancing the fury of play during a game, then cocaine, the current drug of choice for athletes, seemed suitable for recapturing the thrill of competition after the final buzzer. "There is a certain high you get when you play," says Michael Jackson, a New York Knicks rookie and former Georgetown University guard. "A lot of guys try to receive that high again by turning to drugs." As Sports Agent Leigh Steinberg puts it, "Athletes do cocaine because it feels good."

Like the up-and-coming advertising executive or stock speculator, a star player might regard scoring some high-priced blow as just another aspect of the good life. "Professional athletes are an ideal target for drug use," says N.F.L. Commissioner Rozelle. "They fall within the susceptible age group, 20 to 35. They receive inordinate salaries. They have free time due to the short length of the professional sports seasons, as much as six months."

Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Tom Landry believes jocks think they are "macho enough" to use drugs and not be affected by them. Indeed, great athletes almost always have a certain arrogance about them. The best competitors need a sense that they are indestructible. But that willingness to risk physical danger on the playing field can have tragic repercussions in the real world. "How can Rogers take a hit of cocaine after Len Bias died?" asks Forrest Gregg, head coach of the Green Bay Packers. "It happens because we think we're unique. We all have this disease called terminal uniqueness."

Some athletes apparently turn to drugs as a way of coping with the stress of the sporting life. "There is tremendous psychological pressure on athletes," says John Weistart, a law professor at Duke and co-author of The Law of Sports. "They are surrounded by people boosting their egos and telling them they're invulnerable to the ordinary pressures that we all face. An athlete has to deal with the disjunction between the outside world, which says he's exceptional, and what he feels inside, which is he's just as human as the rest of us."

It starts as early as high school: the attention of admirers, the scrutiny from scouts, the pressure to live up to one's potential. Walter Hurd, 17, is an all-city basketball player at Evander Childs High School in the Bronx. He averaged 27 points a game last season and is expected to be one of the most sought-after high school players in the U.S. this year. "Just about everyone's tried it," says Hurd. "If you had 20 guys, I'd say at least 18 had tried drugs." Hurd admits to experimenting with marijuana, but says once was enough. "I know a lot of kids that could have gone to a Division I school but drugs have caused bad problems for them."

Often it is the sleaziest of peers who pressure a budding star to get involved with dope. Says Julius Allen, a coach of the Each One, Teach One summer-league basketball team in New York City: "Even at the high school level, drug dealers want to associate with athletes because they are a status symbol." John Lo-Schiavo, president of the University of San Francisco, says the problem can get worse in college. "When a kid gets national acclaim and looks like he's going to be a top draft choice and so forth, there's a tendency for the wrong element to latch onto that kid," he explains. "They like to reflect in the glory of the star and ingratiate themselves by saying 'I can get you the stuff.' "

Len Bias associated with a few such human leeches. Brian Lee Tribble, 24, a self-employed furniture upholsterer and former Maryland junior varsity basketball player, has been charged with providing Bias with the coke that killed him. "We had heard about it, and I had approached him about it," says Wharton Lee Madkins, director of Maryland's Columbia Park Recreation Center and Bias' first basketball coach. "He told me he wasn't messing with drugs, so I just took it for granted and left it alone."

To Robert Pritchett, coach of the Clark College basketball team in Atlanta and a onetime high school star, the Bias-Tribble relationship is a grim sign of changing times. "I remember when I was coming up. The night before a game, some guys would be standing on the corner drinking a bottle of wine. I would try to get a sip, and a brother would say, 'You can't have none of this. You've got a game tomorrow. You've got to be at your best. You've got a future.' Twenty years ago Len Bias would not have been allowed near anything that could hurt him. That guy would have said, 'No. You've been drafted by the Boston Celtics. You've got a future. You can't have any coke.' Today that same guy took Bias by the hand and led him to his grave."

Ideally, the university should be a kind of sanctuary for the athlete, with coaches and academic advisers protecting him from outside pressures while making sure he receives an education. Sometimes it works that way. At Georgetown, Basketball Coach John Thompson guarded the privacy of his star center, Patrick Ewing, with a vengeance. Ewing, now with the New York Knicks, led his team to four triumphant seasons and earned enough credits to graduate with a degree in fine arts. Nearly every senior Georgetown player during the Ewing era graduated on time. But Georgetown, along with such colleges as Duke and Notre Dame, is an exception.

"I'd like to get my degree," Len Bias had said after deciding to stay at Maryland for his senior year rather than making an early jump to the pros. "That would really mean something to me." Bias, however, had failed or withdrawn from every one of his classes during his final semester. He was 21 credits short of graduating. In fact, five of Bias' eleven teammates had also failed all their courses last spring.

The University of Maryland came under heavy fire for its negligence. Wendy Whittemore, academic counselor to the Terrapins' basketball team, resigned, saying education did not seem to be a top priority for Coach Lefty Driesell. The athletic department was criticized for employing a lax drug-testing program that is suspected of having allowed players to doctor their urine samples. Arthur Marshall, the Prince George's County state's attorney, has claimed that half of Driesell's players were drug users and that members of the coaching staff knew it. To Driesell's credit, he did suspend Bias and another player for two games (the Terrapins lost them) when the pair missed curfew one night.

Last week the university's chancellor, John Slaughter, took what he called emergency action and announced a series of unprecedented changes in the Terrapins' basketball program: practice will begin on Nov. 1 rather than Oct. 15, and maximum weekly practice hours will be reduced from 25 to 18; three early-season games will be canceled and four others rescheduled to keep the first semester game-free; players will receive expanded academic and psychological counseling, and their class attendance will be more carefully monitored. In addition, the university has approved a tough system of mandatory random drug testing. The new plan dictates that tests be unannounced and taken under "direct observation" of a monitor to prevent any tampering with the urine samples.

A growing number of universities are following suit by requiring strict drug tests for athletes. "We test frequently, randomly, arbitrarily," says Joe Paterno, Penn State's celebrated football coach. "My rationale is this: I go into the homes of these kids. I look the parents in the eye and the kid in the eye and talk them into coming to Penn State. I've always believed you can trust kids, but you have to assume that every kid is vulnerable to drugs."

This fall the N.C.A.A., which oversees the sporting programs of 800 colleges and universities, will begin mandatory testing of all participants in the 73 N.C.A.A. championships, from basketball to field hockey, and all 19 college football bowl games. The tests will be unannounced. They may be performed prior to, during or within an hour after a game. If an athlete tests positive for any of the 200 banned drugs, he or she automatically becomes ineligible for further championship competition for at least 90 days. The new program will cost $200 a test, but John Toner, chairman of the N.C.A.A.'s Committee for Drug Testing, says, "It's worth the price. We feel we are breaking new ground."

Drug testing appears to have wide support among college athletes. "I think things are going to change because of the drug tests," says Mark Bryant, a starting forward on Seton Hall's basketball team. "I hear some players saying, 'Hey, I've got to stop this because I'm taking the drug test.' " Says Quarterback Mike Orth of the University of Kansas: "Personally, I approve of it. I don't think athletes here are that uptight about it. I don't see it as discriminating against athletes. A lot of industries are doing it too. They are trying to look out for our needs."

The few critics of collegiate drug testing believe such programs do discriminate against athletes. "Somehow, I find it degrading," says Georgetown's athletics director, Frank Rienzo. "Should there be a distinction as to who should be tested and who should not be?" Argues Duke Law Professor Weistart: "Colleges could never get away with testing the entire student body. But because there is no single party representing student athletes, the N.C.A.A. can ride roughshod over their civil liberties. It's a patent invasion of privacy."

The question of drug testing is even more troublesome in professional sports. Major-league baseball does not have a blanket program; drug questions are handled on a case-by-case basis. Last month Tom Roberts, who had been named arbitrator in the dispute between the owners and the players' union, ruled that drug-testing clauses in players' contracts are "unenforceable" and must be approved by the union. Outraged owners promptly fired him. Management and player representatives are not even close to agreeing on a drug plan.

, The National Basketball Association, on the other hand, has avoided such conflicts with a program for testing players who are suspected of being drug abusers. Three positive tests, and the player is expelled from the league. Such was the case with the New Jersey Nets' Micheal Ray Richardson, who was banned last season. N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern has a simple explanation for how the league came up with its testing program: "We said, 'Let's talk about drugs.' I really credit our players. They faced up to the issue very directly."

In July N.F.L. Commissioner Rozelle proposed a $1 million-a-year plan that would require a player to take two random tests during the regular season. They would include tests for alcohol as well as drugs. A first positive test for most substances would lead to 30 days of counseling. During that time, a player would receive only half his salary. A second positive test would result in a 30-day unpaid suspension. A third fumble, and the player would be banned from the league.

The N.F.L.'s current program, which is part of the league's 1982 collective-bargaining agreement, calls for one mandatory test during the preseason; those who fail are required to undergo drug counseling. Declaring that arrangement ineffective, Rozelle said he was assuming the authority to initiate the new program under an article in the N.F.L. constitution that allows the commissioner to act against "conduct detrimental to the welfare of the league or professional football." The N.F.L. Players Association balked, challenging Rozelle's authority to change the 1982 agreement. The dispute is currently under consideration in U.S. District Court.

Football management and coaches are all for a stricter testing program. "Something has to be done," argues Sam Wyche, head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. "Let's use a little common sense. People are dying around us." Weistart, the Duke professor who criticizes drug tests for college players, feels that they are appropriate for professionals. "Pro sports is a commercial transaction involving huge amounts of money for both physical performance and public image," says he. "Owners have a right to insist on a fair exchange."

Opposition for the most part comes from players. "If there were a way it could be done without infringing on the rights of the individual, then it might work," says Miami Dolphins Quarterback Dan Marino. "But I think there has to be a lot more research done in this area before we can come out and say | random mandatory drug testing is the cure." Eugene ("Mercury") Morris, a former star running back with the Miami Dolphins who was recently released from prison after serving three years on a drug conviction, says singling out athletes for drug tests is an unfair double standard. "I'd be more concerned about a coked-up surgeon operating on my daughter than whether someone on a football field is using drugs."

Instead of becoming symbols of the nation's drug problem, athletes, with their enormous prestige, could become part of the solution. Many established athletes are responding to the call, speaking out more vigorously against drug abuse at rallies and on television. Last week a number of prominent pros, including basketball's Julius Erving and baseball's Dave Winfield, filmed commercials urging kids to say no to drugs. A striking commercial currently on the air features Mercury Morris saying to coke users, "A phone call could help you. It took prison to help me."

Enlisting such stars is an important part of the antidrug crusade. But the war against drugs in sports must be fought day to day in the nation's high schools. It will take more coaches like Morgan Wootten, who has worked for 30 years at DeMatha Catholic High School, a small boys' school in Maryland. His basketball teams have had 23 Washington-area conference championships, and in the past 26 years every senior on the squad has won an athletic scholarship to college. "I talk a lot with my players," says Wootten. "To stress to them that they are in the public eye constantly and they must shoulder the responsibility of setting an example for the players who will follow them."

It will take more players like Chris Fagan, a brawny high school basketball and football star who spent this summer at Wootten's training camp. "I've seen people out on the school grounds before class begins buying and using drugs," Fagan says of his Philadelphia high school. He is well aware of the pitfalls, the temptations, the pressures of being a young athlete. When approached, he has a ready response. "You politely tell them," he says, "to get the hell away from you."

With reporting by Dean Brelis/New York and Frank S. Washington/Atlanta, with other bureaus