Use in College Football
Steroids and performance-enhancing drugs have been reportedly used by many college football players in the NCAA. According to a recent drug test and survey, about one percent of all NCAA football players have tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug or steroid, and about three percent have admitted to using one sometime during their college football career. Controversy arose in 2005, when former Brigham Young University player Jason Scukanec, although never admitting to using steroids himself, stated that steroids were used in many notable Division I programs.
Scukanec, who is currently the host of a sports talk radio show, made these statements:
| “ | 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...And BYU is more temperate than most programs. Being around NFL and NFL Europe players, they would tell me stuff that blew my mind. 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). | ” |
| “ | My best friend was a steroid monster. I shot him up probably four times in the butt. He couldn’t do it himself. He was afraid of needles. He was naturally 245 or 250 pounds, but he got up to 312 with a 36-inch waist. He had stretch marks on his chest and shoulder and eventually blew out both of his knees. When I was with the Broncos, they brought him in for a workout. The offensive line coach came to me and said, ‘What’s your friend on?’ Another guy we played with, who is still in the NFL, would come back at the end of a season weighing 270. Three weeks into the offseason, he was 295 and buffed. It wasn’t a big mystery what he was doing. Three guys I played with in the NFL, I saw them use (steroids). The coaches knew the guys on the juice. To pretend it doesn’t go on would be a farce. It’s the big no-no nobody wants to talk about. And you don’t want to know what’s going on at the junior college level, where no testing is being done. | ” |
Portland State University coach Tim Walsh commented on the situation, declining the remarks:
| “ | That’s a bold statement. It’s a tough accusation, to come up with a number like that. Is it true? Maybe, maybe not. I wish I could say I knew for sure. I’m not naive enough to think it’s not going on out there, but I feel pretty strongly it’s not been a problem with our players over the years. | ” |
The number of players who have admitted using steroids in a confidential survey conducted by the NCAA since the 1980s has dropped from 9.7 percent in 1989 to 3.0 percent in 2003. During the 2003 season, there were over 7,000 drug tests, with just 77 turning up as positive test results. Scukanec claims that methods were used to get around the drug testing, whether it be avoiding the tests by using the drugs during the off-season, or flushing the drugs out of your system. This was used with a liquid he referred to as the "pink." He stated:
| “ | There are a ton of (masking) products out there. What most of them cause is diuresis (increased excretion of urine), which means the athlete is providing diluted urine sample, almost water. In NCAA drug testing, the athlete is required to provide a concentrated specimen that passes a specific gravity cutoff. If the specimen is too diluted, he has to provide another sample. Using a product to cause diuresis is not going to help. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Steroid Use In American Football
Famous quotes containing the words college and/or football:
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