Basically, there was nothing unique about the birth of the NCAA drug-testing program in 1986.

Yes, it was a major initiative by the Association. It was studied and discussed at length, carefully planned and cautiously implemented.

And like many of the NCAA's boldest initiatives, it was a venture into the unknown.

Long before 1986, the NCAA assumed an educational role in a developing American war on drugs. Drug abuse clearly was a campus problem and increasingly was becoming a locker-room problem. Because the Association enjoyed a degree of influence on campuses and visibility in the media, it was natural that its leaders would speak out against drug abuse.

When the NCAA Council formed the Drug Education Committee in 1970, the Association acted within a long-standing tradition -- dating back to the abolition of the flying wedge -- of advocating and protecting student-athlete welfare.

But drug testing? The Association was vitally interested in maintaining integrity in competition, but marijuana and cocaine don't offer athletes much help in winning games or races. Even though use of anabolic steroids by elite athletes in international competition dates as far back as the 1950s, few perceived that such drugs were widely used in intercollegiate sports, or that there was much pressure on student-athletes to try them.

As late as 1982, even those who suspected that performance-based doping was infiltrating the college ranks doubted they could do much about it. No effective means of testing for substances like anabolic steroids existed in the United States.

But the times, they were a-changin'.

In January 1982, the University of California, Los Angeles, opened the United States' first International Olympic Committee-certified drug-testing laboratory in anticipation of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

 Just a couple of months earlier, the Drug Education Committee conducted a survey of 1,000 male student-athletes in the Big Ten Conference, and 40 percent of the respondents said that drug use was a slight or growing problem among varsity athletes. A sizable percentage (27 percent) of those who listed ways to tackle the problem suggested stricter enforcement of rules banning drug use, including the use of urine and blood tests as deterrents.

An NCAA staff task force responded by asking the NCAA Council to authorize a national drug-use study, and also noted that the new drug-testing facilities and technology available in the United States could make drug testing at NCAA championships economically feasible.

NCAA blazes its own trail

The growing problem made headlines during the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, where improved testing procedures snared a number of athletes who tested positive for use of anabolic steroids.

The United States Olympic Committee's desire to get a grip on performance-based doping prompted the USOC to offer to share its new drug-testing capability with the NCAA. But the NCAA made a crucial decision at that point -- it decided that any drug testing conducted at NCAA championships should be conducted completely under the control of the Association. The Drug Education Committee respectfully refused the USOC's offer.

The increasing concern about use of "social narcotics" and performance-enhancing substances, combined with the realization that testing was feasible, prompted the Pacific-10 Conference to sponsor a resolution at the 1984 NCAA Convention directing the NCAA Executive Committee to develop a testing program for the Association's championships. The membership approved the resolution, requiring the Executive Committee to present a plan for consideration at the 1985 Convention.

The Executive Committee formed the Special NCAA Committee on Drug Testing, which moved quickly to create a proposed list of banned medications and a testing protocol. The committee was able to move quickly because it borrowed heavily from the IOC's existing program.

Following the IOC's lead, the special NCAA committee chose not to include street drugs in the testing program, citing a concern that testing for substances that do not enhance performance would make testing more vulnerable to a legal challenge. The committee preferred that institutions -- which had a more clearly identifiable interest in preserving student-athletes' health -- screen athletes for street drugs. The Association would concentrate on championships testing for stimulants and year-round testing for steroids.

The street-drug issue

But the proposal quickly ran into trouble with the membership as the 1985 Convention approached. Citing data revealing significant use of marijuana among athletes, opponents objected to the exclusion of street drugs from the list of banned substances. Eight amendments-to-amendments were submitted to deal with other perceived shortcomings in the legislation. The NCAA Council opted to withdraw the drug-testing proposal before it was put to a vote.

And circumstances continued to change.

A new Special NCAA Committee for National Drug-Testing Policy tackled revisions in the 1985 Convention proposal. While that committee pursued its work, Indiana University law professor John A. Scanlan completed an analysis of the legal implications of mandatory drug testing. He concluded that the NCAA and member institutions properly could give student-athletes a choice, based on the idea that participating in championships is a privilege, rather than a right.

The choice: Athletes either can grant advance permission to test for performance-enhancing drugs as well as substances that significantly endanger health, or they can choose not to participate in NCAA championships.

The opinion was an important final breakthrough in the efforts to establish NCAA drug testing.

It cleared the way for including testing for street drugs in proposed legislation at the 1986 Convention, although the Association still treaded lightly around the issue of including marijuana as a banned substance. The revised proposal stated that student-athletes must test positive twice for the herb before being banned from competition.

The 1986 Convention legislation also differed in another significant way from the earlier proposal. In another significant departure from the IOC protocol, planners proposed giving student-athletes the opportunity to obtain permission in advance to continue using medication for health reasons that contained banned substances. The provision addressed another major concern expressed by opponents of the 1985 proposal.

Delegates to the 1986 Convention needed only 12 minutes to debate and approve Proposal No. 30.

"I believe the NCAA has taken a leadership role in dealing with a problem that is bigger than most of us recognize," NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers said afterward.

The action left the NCAA staff about 10 months to prepare for the first testing during the 1986 fall championships and at football bowl games.

-- Jack L. Copeland