Despite my experiences as a student-athlete, coach, soccer dad and sports scholar, I never thought twice about the impact of marijuana use on student-athletes until I met a 6-foot-8, 285-pound Division I lineman destined for the NFL.

This young man was also an honor roll student and one of the most charismatic young men I’ve known. I came to observe him during my first athletics department position as a learning specialist for football at an Atlantic Coast Conference school. I watched him excel on the field and in the classroom, but he was still underachieving because he couldn’t stop smoking that weed.

After I completed my terminal degree, I left athletics behind to start my career as an assistant professor in a school of social work. Soon after, I learned that the student-athlete I had befriended dropped out of school. I called the associate AD to ask him why. “Couldn’t stop smoking that weed,” he said.

I still had the football player’s cell phone number, so I called him and asked him what happened. “Couldn’t stop smoking that weed,” he said.

No NFL and no degree, all because he couldn’t stop smoking that weed.

Over the last two years, there have been at least 93 media reports involving top-level NCAA Division I athletes and marijuana use. Unfortunately, we must rely on media reports because of the lack of research. We know that rates of marijuana use among student athletes (27.2 percent) are less than that among non-student-athletes (40.6 percent). However, marijuana did account for 15 of 38 positive drug tests at the 2005 NCAA basketball championships.

My experience with that student-athlete and an examination of the available data suggest that many coaches, counselors and administrators ignore the reality that some individuals cannot stop smoking that weed. Although Division I programs have the financial resources, infrastructure and staff to test, monitor and treat student-athletes who abuse marijuana, reducing marijuana among student-athletes does not simply boil down to dollars and cents.

In addition to providing resources, schools need to hold student-athletes accountable for their actions. Student-athletes could benefit from sanctions that include forfeiting playing time for marijuana use. However, college sports is a high-profile, multibillion-dollar business, and athletics departments want their athletes on the field, not in the news. Head coaches hesitate to suspend a student-athlete because if he or she is not on the field, the campus community and the media will want to know why. Therefore, although student-athletes may be referred for treatment, there is no meaningful deterrent.

In helping student-athletes, it is also important to keep in mind that they form a unique population. Even as they confront the same developmental issues as their non-student-athlete peers, they must also confront identity foreclosure, coddling, isolation and often academic problems on top of their athletics superiority. Most student-athletes who use marijuana do so to feel good. Thus, when student-athletes fail to explore new social roles, segregate themselves from non-student-athletes or experience academic struggles, the likelihood of marijuana use might increase.

The environment surrounding college athletics can leave student-athletes vulnerable to marijuana use and abuse. But when thinking of vulnerable populations, social work practitioners are not likely to think of college athletes. We sometimes devalue the role of sports, despite the fact that social workers encounter student-athletes in middle schools, high schools, after-school programs and, unfortunately, criminal justice systems.

Unlike coaches and teachers and counselors, social workers are not solely concerned with student-athletes’ academic or athletics wants; they are also concerned with their biological, psychological and social needs. Social workers can introduce or reinforce harm-reduction strategies as opposed to expecting student-athletes to immediately abstain from drug use.

Whereas athletics academic counselors and head coaches have to be concerned that student-athletes who fail drug tests will lose playing time, social workers have no conflicting interests. We can make an effort to reduce the harms of drugs through education, prevention and treatment that target the person, the environment and the stressful systems that typify collegiate athletics.

Although social workers in Division I counseling settings are involved in intake, assessment and treatment of the general student body, student-athletes often are referred to private practitioners because of their high-profile campus status. Becoming a part of the network of outside clinicians used by universities opens one more pathway for social workers in private practice to assist vulnerable student-athletes.

Another pathway is for social workers to become speakers for the NCAA Health and Safety Workshop Speakers Bureau. Through the bureau, schools obtain speakers who address issues related to student-athletes’ academic, emotional and physical needs. Most important, a number of social workers are already working directly within athletics departments. About 7 percent of Division I Football Bowl Subdivision programs currently employ student-athlete development personnel with a master’s of social work degree.

Moreover, the social work education system has the immediate potential to train students to occupy roles in student-athlete development. There are 81 Division I universities that award a master’s in social work. It would not be too difficult to arrange for student placements within the athletics departments of these schools. The truth is that social workers can provide and coordinate academic, career, financial and health student-athlete services.

In line with social work values, we need to ensure that student-athletes live up to their academic and social potential and graduate college free of the hazards related to marijuana use.

If my young friend had done that, maybe he would now be playing in the NFL.

Emmett Gill is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Rutgers. He has served as a panelist at previous NCAA Conventions and presented a paper at the most recent Scholarly Colloquium on Intercollegiate Athletics at the 2009 Convention in Washington, D.C.