National Collegiate Athletic Association |
CommentMarch 23, 1998
Guest editorial -- Seven myths about athletes and drugs
BY GARY A. GREEN, M.D. The NCAA recently completed its most extensive survey of substance use and abuse patterns among student-athletes from all three divisions. The study surveyed more than 13,000 athletes from 18 men's sports and 15 women's sports and provides a glimpse into the drug-use habits of NCAA athletes in 1997. The NCAA and its research staff should be commended for the work involved in accomplishing such a task. This study clearly is more representative of NCAA athletes than prior studies that were done in 1985, 1989 and 1993 in that more sports were studied and there was a much larger sample size in 1997. While the differences in the methodologies between the prior studies and 1997 make comparisons difficult, the 1997 version should be mandatory reading for anyone who interacts with intercollegiate athletes. While it is impossible to summarize the entire report in this brief editorial, I would like to highlight several points by dispelling seven myths about athletes and substance abuse. Myth 1: Drug use is highest in Division I. Actually, drug use is lowest in Division I for all drugs in the study, which includes both ergogenic (performance-enhancing) and recreational drugs. Division III had the highest percentage of drug use for amphetamines, anabolic steroids, alcohol and marijuana. Of the other two drugs surveyed, smokeless tobacco and ephedrine, Division II was the highest with Division III second. This probably comes as no surprise to those who work at the Divisions II and III levels. There is very little institutional drug testing at those levels, and the NCAA conducts drug testing only at championship events and year-round for Division II football. Myth 2: Drug use is highest among African-American student athletes. According to the study, African-Americans had the lowest percentage of drug use among all the drugs surveyed. With some drugs, the differences were dramatic. For example, 84 percent of the Caucasian athletes had used alcohol in the preceding 12 months, versus 60 percent among African-Americans. Another example is that only five percent of African-American athletes had used smokeless tobacco in the previous year, compared to 26 percent among Caucasians. Myth 3: Football has the highest use of anabolic steroids. Although the anabolic steroid rate for football players (2.2 percent) was higher than most of the sports surveyed, men's water polo actually had a higher rate of use: 2.8 percent. While football has received the most attention in this area and undergoes year-round random testing in Divisions I and II, there are many other sports, such as men's water polo and baseball, that have significant usage of anabolic steroids. Myth 4: The majority of college athletes feel they must take drugs to "keep up with their competition." The research found that 87 percent of the student-athletes surveyed disagreed with the above statement. Furthermore, 94 percent felt that college athletes use drugs less than other college students. It is important to remember that while accounts of individual student-athletes using drugs make newspaper headlines, the majority of student-athletes do not use illegal substances. Myth 5: Marijuana is the most commonly used recreational drug among college athletes. Not even close! While marijuana is the second most commonly used recreational drug, its use is approximately one third that of alcohol: 80 percent to 28 percent, respectively. Marijuana use among athletes clearly must be addressed by colleges in order to decrease the use of a substance that has negative effects on performance (except in snowboarding, which is not an NCAA sport). In the meantime, we must not forget that alcohol is far and away the biggest recreational drug problem on college campuses. Myth 6: Ephedrine is mainly used as a recreational drug by student-athletes. Ephedrine is a sympathomimetic drug found in many diet drugs and in some over-the-counter decongestants. Taken in large quantities, it can give an effect similar to speed, and it is used in illegal labs as building blocks for methamphetamine. However, this study revealed that three percent of athletes had used ephedrine in the preceding 12 months; 50 percent of the users stated that they took it to improve athletics performance. Because of this information, the NCAA added ephedrine to its banned substance list for the 1997-98 season. Myth 7: Supplements are rarely used by college athletes. The use of nutritional supplements is widespread among college athletes. According to the survey, 33 percent of college athletes had used either creatine, DHEA, amino acids or other supplements in the past year. There are many concerns about the unrestrained use of supplements, including the lack of industrial regulation and the questionable purity of many compounds. In addition, many drugs are found in these easy-to-buy supplements that will result in a positive drug test by the NCAA, with the result being a one-year suspension. These include supplements containing DHEA and androstendione. The excuse that "it's a legal substance that I bought at the nutrition store and they told me it was safe" is not acceptable. Several NCAA athletes have lost eligibility due to the use of supplements. NCAA athletes and administrators are responsible for educating themselves about the drugs included on the NCAA's banned-substance list. This is a growing problem and is likely to get worse as more and more substances become available. These are just some examples of the information that can be found in the 1997 Study of Substance Use and Abuse Habits of College Student-Athletes that was compiled by the NCAA research staff. I encourage anyone connected with NCAA athletes to take the time to read this important document. The NCAA already has used information obtained in the survey to formulate policy and increase the health and safety of its athletes. You can obtain a copy of the study by contacting the NCAA sports sciences staff. Gary A. Green, M.D., is team physician for the University of California, Los Angeles, and Pepperdine University. He also is a member of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. Comment -- Situation set record for bad precedents
BY DENNIS BROWN There were more losers than winners in the Nykesha Sales imbroglio. Sales, as you probably know, is the University of Connecticut basketball player who suffered a season-ending injury just two points shy of setting a school scoring record. Rather than accept fate, her coach, Geno Auriemma, orchestrated an elaborate plan that let Sales set the record. Working with his counterpart at Villanova University and others, he arranged for Sales to score an uncontested basket at the start of Connecticut's final regular-season game. In exchange, the Huskies gave Villanova a free basket as well, making the score 2-2 when the real game began. On the surface, this seems to be a heart-warming story with all heroes and no villains. Sales, by all accounts an outstanding player and person, gets the record she surely would have set but for the injury. Auriemma, an equally outstanding coach, provides his star with, in his words, a "gift." Villanova's coaches and players display superior sportsmanship. And all is right with the world. Or is it? Something tells me, no, this isn't right at all. In fact, it seems to me that Sales, sportsmanship and women's athletics all came out on the short end of this well-meaning gesture. Sales will long be remembered for setting the scoring record at Connecticut, but for all the wrong reasons. The mark will always carry a figurative asterisk, and it's my guess she never will feel truly comfortable with the achievement. Sportsmanship also suffered. Many have saluted both Auriemma and Villanova coach Harry Perretta for working together in a spirit of sportsmanship and collegiality. But what if Perretta had declined to cooperate? Would he have been unsportsmanlike? And where does this manipulation of athletics posterity end? Should college soccer, volleyball and softball coaches routinely trade goals, aces and strikeouts to assure records for their stars? Whatever the reason? What if this involved a conference or national record? What if an athlete is four or five points short of a record, instead of just one or two? None of these rhetorical scenarios sound sportsmanlike to me because, like the Sales incident, they fly in the face of athletics competition and lead to a very slippery sporting slope. What concerns me most about this episode, however, is the way it has diminished women's athletics as a whole. The prevailing opinion that this kind of arrangement never would be allowed in men's speaks volumes about how far women have to go. The unstated but clear implication of such thinking is obvious: What men do in athletics is more important, serious and worthwhile than the games "girls" play. Unfortunately, more people actually do think that way, but still the triumphs of women in athletics were beginning to resonate with the general public. Now, this incident reinforces their second-rate status. Those involved in women's athletics have long recognized that sports can teach life lessons to girls and women as well as they can to boys and men. One of those lessons is understanding that bad things happen to good people and accepting with grace the curve balls, rejections and fumbles of life that come our way. I have no doubt that the principals involved in the Sales situation were well-meaning. But they should have left well enough alone. Dennis Brown is the associate director of public relations at the University of Notre Dame. He has reported on women's athletics for more than 20 years. Opinions -- Difference blurring between men's, women's athletics
Larry Tye, sportswriter "There once was a basketball player who was sidelined by an injury but, thanks to an obliging coach, got into the game for 68 seconds -- just long enough to help smash a cherished record. "That player was not Nykesha Sales, the University of Connecticut All-American who ignited a national controversy when she did something similar recently. That player's story is not one you have heard before, unless you read deep inside the sports pages. And that player is not a woman, which probably is why you don't know what he did and certainly is why his story hasn't spawned complaints that women athletes have softer standards than men. "The player in question is A.C. Green of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. Two years ago, while playing for the Phoenix Suns, Green took an elbow to the mouth that cost him two front teeth and would have kept him out of a game or two -- except that each game was critical to Green's continuing his drive toward the NBA record for consecutive games. Donning a protective mask for the next game, Green took the court long enough to miss a basket and extend his streak. By the time he broke the record a year later, Green had played less than six minutes in 12 games. "That isn't to say there aren't differences between male and female sports stars. There are, and they're big ones. "The point, sports watchers say, is that those differences aren't as damning as women not getting it about competition, or as simplistic as the Big East commissioner's recent contention that men 'get along and move on' while women 'break down' and 'get emotional.' The real differences are a function of different anatomies, and different sports upbringings. And many of the differences, those who know kids' sports say, are evaporating as girls increasingly are pushed to the same competitive intensity -- at the same young age -- as boys."
Sportsmanship
Pat Boyd, physical education teacher "We have schools in the state that can't play their games in the evening anymore because of fights. It's not just the athletes and coaches who need to work with sportsmanship, it's the entire community."
Basketball recruiting
Rob Daniels, sportswriter "Some fans follow college basketball recruiting more intently than they watch the games. "It starts innocently enough -- one magazine subscription, perhaps a second. Then the nights logged on to the Internet. Soon thereafter, the telltale sign: Those 900 numbers start showing up on the phone bill. "Soft porn? Hard-core? Scantily clad women speaking, ahem, candidly? Nope. A group of 17-year-old boys dressed in full basketball uniforms and deciding where to go to college. "And all of it is unregulated, which, to its followers, is almost as wonderful as the news that Al Harrington, Ronald Curry or some other unsigned, uncommitted, frequently pursued fellow has elected to take his free education at the school of the fanatic's choice. "This is college basketball recruiting we're talking about, and across the land, we're talking about it a lot. " 'It's a sport unto itself,' says Bob Gibbons, who should know. Gibbons makes a decent living working sources, culling knowledge and trying to satisfy the often insatiable hunger for recruiting news and rumor through his All-Star Sports Publications. "He is not alone. Dozens of print publications have been joined in the fray by vast Internet options -- message boards, online versions of magazines, daily newspapers, you name it -- and yes, the expensive phone services. Among other things, these media rank the top 100 or 200 or 300 players, speculate on where they're going and then rank individual schools' recruiting classes once the hallowed signings have actually taken place. "Just a few lines of this stuff speak powerfully and perhaps comically to the passion fans feel for players they have probably never seen take a single dribble."
College basketball rules
Judd Heathcote, former men's basketball coach "I have a pet rule change that I have advocated for years, but it will never happen. Basketball is the only game where players are eliminated. I have said forever that no one should foul out. I would like to see extreme hardships on the sixth foul, like an extra shot and possession. Then the coach would have to make a choice whether to keep his star in the game, but at a tremendous expense.... "Some people have talked about going to international rules as standard. I have always maintained that basketball is our game. We should determine the rules and let others copy us.... "I'd also like to go to a 45-second clock rather than the 30-second clock we have now. The 30-second clock was dreamed up by the rules committee with no experimentation. Once a rule is in, it's in, and if we move backward in time, everyone will say we're slowing the game down. The reality is, though, that the 45 seconds allows you to run a play, run a second play and then improvise. It puts more finesse into the game." |