Uniform testing in plans
Government control opposed by Tagliabue
WASHINGTON -- Vowing to curb the spread of steroids, key congressional leaders yesterday announced they would launch a landmark initiative to shift control of testing for performance-enhancing drugs from professional and collegiate sports to the federal government. The move signals the end of a decades-long reluctance in Congress to aggressively intervene in American sports.
"It's a huge issue that needs to be taken care of, and members [of Congress] are pretty united on this," Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who chairs the House Committee on Government Reform, said after a five-hour hearing on steroids in the National Football League. "It will send a message to amateur and professional sports that if it's illegal, it won't be tolerated."
Under legislation being crafted by Davis and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, every major professional sport and college athletic association would be subject to a uniform testing policy, with the nation's drug czar overseeing the list of banned substances. Davis said the bill's sponsors had yet to decide whether to grant the government or sports organizations the power to punish violators.
Either way, most sports leagues and players' unions oppose the plan, and a similar proposal by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"We can deal with our own sport better than a uniform standard, which in many cases is going to become the lowest common denominator," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue told the committee. Tagliabue echoed baseball commissioner Bud Selig's opposition to federal intervention, which he voiced during a hearing last month on baseball's steroid crisis.
Gene Upshaw, the Hall of Famer who heads the NFL Players Association, also criticized the plan, saying it would violate the players' collective bargaining rights.
The hearing unfolded in the wake of several steroid-related embarrassments for the NFL, whose anti-doping program is considered one of the most comprehensive in professional sports. The incidents included a CBS report that a South Carolina doctor prescribed steroids for three Carolina Panthers who played in the 2004 Super Bowl, a decision by the San Diego Chargers to select
Lawmakers cited surveys showing as many as 500,000 children, including middle-school girls, have used steroids.
"If our professional athletes aren't clean, and if the perception they give is that you can cheat and make the Super Bowl, it trickles down, and the effect is huge," said Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican who chairs the panel's subcommittee on drug policy.
As strong as the NFL's program may be, everyone, including Tagliabue, acknowledged it could be better. He said the league has detected 111 positive samples for steroids since it began testing players in 1989. Of the players who tested positive, 54 were suspended and the other 57 left the game (he said their departures suggested they were marginal players). Only two of the 54 players who were suspended tested positive a second time, and those two also left the NFL, according to Tagliabue.
"We feel our program is the best in American sports," he said, "but we have a responsibility to make it better."
Lawmakers were particularly criticial of the NFL's penalties for steroid abuse: a four-game suspension for a first offense, a six-game suspension for a second offense, and a 12-month suspension for a third offense. Several committee members supported penalties more in line with the Olympics, which suspends players for two years for a first offense and bans them for life for a second offense.
Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who serves as the panel's vice chairman, asked why members of the Buckeye Union High School football team in Buckeye, Ariz., faced felony charges in addition to being suspended from their team for steroid offenses while NFL offenders avoid criminal charges. The Buckeye coach, Bobby Barnes, was among the witnesses.
"It doesn't make sense to me," said Steve Courson, a former NFL player who admitted using steroids and now campaigns against performance-enhancing drugs. "That's not what I call a great message."
Tagliabue defended the league's penalty system, asserting that suspending players for 12 months, for example, could all but end their careers.
"In some cases, it would be a young man whose only path out of the ghetto was football," Tagliabue said, "and he would go back and never return."
That drew a strong rebuke from Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who said he lives in the shadow of the stadium where the Baltimore Ravens play. Steroids are classified as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act.
"I live in the ghetto, all right?" Cummings told Tagliabue. "I represent people who can't afford to go to the game. I represent people who, if they're caught with a Schedule III drug, go to jail. I have no sympathy, none, for people who cheat. These guys are getting paid, big time."
Tagliabue acknowledged three major weaknesses in the NFL's policy, even after the league increased the number of random tests players may be subjected to during the offseason to six from two and reduced the minimum threshold for a positive test for testosterone.
He said players can continue to gauge their testosterone levels after using illegal supplements to remain below the threshold, as may have occurred with the three Carolina players who passed their tests last year. Tagliabue said the NFL also does not test for human growth hormone because there is no suitable lab in the United States, and he acknowledged that the league is struggling to keep up with the emergence of drugs designed to avoid detection.
"We believe it's under control," he said of the league's anti-doping program, "but it's not perfect."
Dr. Gary Wadler, who serves with the World Anti-Doping Agency, said the NFL's policy on amphetamines lacks teeth, which Tagliabue vowed to address.
Committee leaders also took some heat from Rep. Stephen Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, who cited "a glaring gap" in the hearing because the witness list did not include anyone who has played in the NFL since 1985.
Davis said the committee will focus next month on the NBA's drug policies, with a hearing tentatively scheduled for mid-May. Last night, NBA commissioner David Stern said discussions have already been held with the players' union on expanding testing for performance-enhancing drugs, and he said he is optimistic it will be part of the new labor agreement.
