Explosive allegation

STOUGHTON -- He ran his finger down a list of his former college baseball teammates and sorted them into groups: players who used steroids and those who resisted.

''Not a user," Joe Apotheker said, starting at the top of a list of former players at Barry University, an NCAA Division 2 school in Miami Shores, Fla.

''User."

''Not a user."

''User and dealer."

''Not a user."

''User."

So it went as Apotheker, a former Globe All-Scholastic at Stoughton High School who was drafted by the Florida Marlins out of Barry in 2002, worked his way down the list of his college teammates. Apotheker said he knew the players abused steroids because he saw them inject the illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

''They were shooting themselves up right in the Barry locker room," he said in an interview at his family's home in Stoughton. ''Right after practice, they'd be popping needles in. At least 11 or 12 kids on the team were doing steroids."

One of Apotheker's college teammates, Eric Kelly of Fall River, provided a similar account.

''When I arrived in 2001 for my freshman year, I was appalled by the steroid abuse, prescription pill abuse as well as diet pill abuse that was going on in the baseball locker room," Kelly, a former Durfee High School star, wrote in a signed statement.

In one of the first cases of student-athletes exposing alleged steroid abuse in college baseball, Apotheker said two of the players he saw injecting themselves with performance-enhancing drugs at Barry later signed professional contracts with major league organizations. And Kelly expressed concern that some of his former teammates risked health problems ''because of the steroids they took at Barry University."

Apotheker said he told Barry's athletic director, Michael Covone, about the alleged steroid problem without naming specific players when he returned to the school after the Marlins released him in 2003. Apotheker later informed other administration officials. And the university has responded, he asserted, by making his academic life so miserable that he has been unable to complete the final course he needs for his bachelor's degree.

''He's being punished because he's a whistleblower," his father, Jeff Apotheker, said. ''To me, there's no other explanation."

'You'll get used to it'
School officials said they have no evidence that student-athletes at Barry have used steroids. They said Apotheker has refused to provide enough information for them to investigate his allegations and they suggested he raised the issue in a dispute over his academic status. The conflict relates partly to the school's charge that Apotheker plagiarized an extra-credit paper in kinesiology, the last course he needed to complete for his bachelor's degree in physical education.

''It's fishy to me that all this surfaced since December when the grades came out," said Jean Cerra, the dean of Barry's School of Human Performance and Leisure Sciences, which oversees the athletic department.

Apotheker, in a recent Globe interview, named five former teammates he said he witnessed injecting steroids in the Barry locker room. He identified several other players he believed were users for various reasons, including their encouraging him to use illegal performance enhancers. Kelly, who came forward at Apotheker's request, said in an interview that he witnessed two former teammates inject themselves with steroids in the Barry locker room.

Apotheker and Kelly said they have never used steroids.

''My freshman year, I walked into the clubhouse late after practice and saw it going on," Kelly said in an interview. ''I told Joey the next day and he said, 'You'll get used to it.' "

A former athletic training student at Barry who worked with the team during Apotheker's tenure said in an interview that he did not witness players injecting steroids but was aware of a number of players who ingested steroid precursors that were banned by the NCAA. The former student asked not to be identified out of concern about possible retribution from the school.

Barry does not test its athletes for steroids, and the NCAA did not begin randomly testing Division 2 baseball players during the regular season until last year. Division 2 baseball players previously had been tested regularly by the NCAA only during the postseason, and the Barry baseball team has not qualified for the playoffs since 1998. (The school's women's soccer teams have won three Division 2 national championships and its volleyball teams have captured two national titles.)

Covone, asked if he recalled Apotheker informing him in 2003 about an alleged steroid problem, said, ''If he did, I certainly would have investigated."

Covone declined to say definitively whether he recalled such a conversation, though he said no one presented him with information at the time that warranted an investigation. Cerra, in a separate interview, said Covone flatly denied to her that Apotheker had informed him in 2003 about an alleged steroid problem.

No evidence
Apotheker said the coaches know about the steroid abuse but Barry's baseball coaches in 2001 and 2002 said they saw no evidence of steroid abuse.

''I don't know why my name is being dragged through the mud," said Chris Cafalone, who coached the Barry team from 1995 to 2001 and now coaches at Onondaga Community College in New York. ''I'm very discouraged and concerned about it. I don't condone [steroid use] and I don't appreciate it."

Juan Ranero, who took over the Barry team in 2002 and recently resigned to coach at Rowan University in New Jersey, said he counseled his players to abstain from using steroids as well as over-the-counter products such as creatine.

''I don't believe it went on while I was there," Ranero said of steroid use. ''I never saw anything like that. If somebody did it on their own, I don't know anything about it."

Apotheker and Kelly said they did not believe their former assistant coach, Marc Pavao, a graduate of Bridgewater State College who recruited them to Barry and succeeded Ranero as the head coach, had any direct knowledge of steroid use.

''I haven't seen anything close to [the allegations] as far as steroid use," said Pavao.

Cerra acknowledged that players could have used steroids, though she said she had no evidence to indicate any use occurred.

''I'm not naive," Cerra said. ''We're dealing with young people. We don't know what they do 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If there is a problem, I want to know. I want to thoroughly investigate it and get to the bottom of it and put it to rest one way or the other."

As a result, the school has told Apotheker to put up or shut up. Either provide written evidence or ''withdraw permanently all these untrue and baseless allegations against the school and the athletics program," provost J. Patrick Lee informed Apotheker in a letter. Lee also warned Apotheker that if he were to graduate from Barry and continue to air the allegations, ''we will move to rescind your degree immediately."

Apotheker, 25, said he has no plans to withdraw the allegations or provide the school with additional evidence. He said he believes the school would use his cooperation against him, citing the administration's handling of the plagiarism dispute, which has further roiled the relationship between the school and one of its former star athletes.

Can't make the grade
Once a prized member of the Barry baseball program, Apotheker set the school's season records for batting (.417) and on-base percentage (.539) in 2002 as an all-star in the Sunshine State Conference. He previously was a second-team All-American at Community College of Rhode Island and was MVP of the 2001 all-star game between the New England Collegiate Baseball League and the Cape Cod League.

Apotheker brought a measure of recognition to Barry when the Marlins selected him in the 33d round of the 2002 amateur draft. Assigned to Single A Jamestown of the New York-Penn League, he ranked among the league leaders in batting midway through his rookie season before he suffered a concussion and hamstring injuries and finished at .282 with two homers and 20 RBIs in 55 games. The Marlins released him after spring training in 2003.

Back at Barry in the fall of '03, Apotheker was on track to graduate last year before he derailed in kinesiology. All he needed was a score of 70 or better, but he finished with a 68, contributing to the sour climate between him and the school. The atmosphere appears to have deteriorated after Apotheker's father placed an angry phone call to the kinesiology professor.

''You better believe I was irate," Jeff Apotheker said. ''I let her have it. I said, 'Who the hell are you to give him a 68 instead of a 70? You mean to tell me you can't give him points for effort?' Of course, I lost my cool. I called up yelling and screaming, but the worst thing I said is, 'I'm going to sue you.' "

The school cited Apotheker with student conduct violations for his father's alleged ''abusive behavior" and ''verbal harassment" of a faculty member. School officials also warned Apotheker ''to cease your terroristic threats against faculty and staff."

Having whiffed on his first swing at kinesiology, Apotheker tried again last fall -- and again failed to hit 70. He asserted the professor undermined him in part by first advising him to skip the lab section of the course because he had fared well in it the first time, then telling him he should have taken the lab to help him improve his overall grade. He said the professor also required him to exceed the standard workload for his teaching internship by 55 hours, cutting into his study time for kinesiology.

In addition, Apotheker's lawyer suggested in a letter to the school that Apotheker may have been ''the victim of stereotyping because he is an athletic, heterosexual male -- a 'typical jock.' " The letter cited the possibility Apotheker could pursue a case of reverse discrimination against the school, which is sponsored by a Catholic Order of Dominican sisters.

School officials, who dismissed the reverse discrimination theory as meritless, gave Apotheker another chance to pass kinesiology by completing an extra-credit paper on the biomechanics of the backhand Frisbee throw. Apotheker said he followed the professor's advice by using online resources, only to be charged with plagiarizing 40 percent of the paper.

School officials said the professor never suggested Apotheker break the rules.

''She may have indicated various websites which could prove helpful but she did not tell you to copy word for word that information," Lee told Apotheker in a letter. ''The paper you submitted was plagiarized from a paper found online."

Apotheker attributed the episode to a misunderstanding, an explanation the school rejected. He also argued that another student had received a passing grade in kinesiology the previous year by submitting a paper on the backhand Frisbee throw very similar to his. But that strategy also backfired, as Apotheker found himself facing another possible conduct violation.

''If you were aware [the student] had plagiarized his paper, you have further violated the Academic Dishonesty Policy by not informing the faculty member that plagiarism was taking place," Lee wrote.

So why, the Apothekers asked, should Apotheker risk further disciplinary action by providing evidence of past steroid use?

''Every time we come up with evidence that the school did something for somebody else and not for Joey, they use that against us," Jeff Apotheker said.

Cerra said the school sees no correlation between withholding evidence of plagiarism and steroid use.

''That's ridiculous," she said of the analogy. ''If he gave me the information [about steroids] and it proved to be true, I would protect him from any retaliation as a result of it."

'I need some help'
Covone indicated he conducted a preliminary inquiry into the steroid allegations by contacting coaches and some players from Apotheker's tenure at Barry. But Cerra said she needed specific information from Apotheker before she could fully investigate and resolve the issue. Otherwise, she said, she has too little to go on.

''I'm not going to investigate every student-athlete who was here the years [Apotheker] was here," Cerra said.

Apotheker approached several former teammates at Barry about supporting his allegations, but all except Kelly declined.

''They're not going to admit to illegal behavior," he said.

Other than Kelly, none of Apotheker's former teammates who were contacted by the Globe supported his account.

''If there was somebody or a couple of guys [using], I wasn't really aware of it," said Adam Toro, who played two seasons with Apotheker. ''I never physically witnessed it."

Carlos Uribe, who spent one season in the baseball program with Apotheker, said, ''I really didn't see anything when I was there, but that doesn't mean it didn't go on."

Apotheker said all he wants is his diploma so he can launch his career as a teacher and coach. He said he hopes someone, perhaps a priest, will volunteer to help resolve his dispute with the school. He said he is prepared to take kinesiology again at a school in Massachusetts if Barry will accept the credits and award him a degree.

But Barry officials said they will not authorize Apotheker to take the course again unless he meets several requirements, including admitting to plagiarism and either providing evidence of the steroid allegations or apologizing in writing for raising them.

''Once you raise the allegations, take accountability," Cerra said. ''Either produce the evidence or recant. That's part of the life lessons we teach people. You just don't make allegations without being able to back them up."

Apotheker, in addition to expressing concern about possible retribution, said he doubted Barry officials would be able to corroborate his evidence because of the code of silence among steroid users, particularly in baseball. As a consequence, he said, he has become enmeshed in a Catch-22.

''I'm telling the truth, but I'm in a tough spot," he said. ''I need some help."