By Jocelyn Sterling
The last few weeks America has been disappointed by two of its best athletes: Olympian Michael Phelps with his infamous bong, and Alex Rodriguez with his steroid confession. It makes us wonder, "What are our own athletes doing today?"
The National Collegiate Athletic Association and University of Portland try to answer this question every year through drug testing, a procedure which ensures that no collegiate athlete is using performance enhancing or recreational street drugs. Athletes are randomly chosen to be tested each year, both by the NCAA and UP. But is it enough?
Most athletes don't think so. Junior golfer Paige Rachor said that the number of athletes tested each year is not enough to really make a difference.
"If we only test a few people a semester it's not really going to solve anything," Rachor said. "If they tested more people then I think it would have more of an impact."
Junior baseball player CJ Cullen agrees. He thinks that testing is a good thing and that it maintains an even playing field and keeps athletes healthy, but that the NCAA and UP should increase the number of people tested.
Kyle Nelson, UP's head trainer and sight coordinator for testing thinks the system is fair, but he would like to see testing more often. However, more testing would involve an increase of cost, so currently there is a happy medium, Nelson said.
Each year the NCAA randomly chooses eight athletes from two sport teams to be tested for performance enhancing drugs. UP has its own testing, in which 50 athletes are randomly chosen for recreational street drugs. The National Center for Drug Free Sport runs the procedure for both the NCAA and UP; students are notified only 24 hours in advance to prevent them from attempting to flush the drugs out of their bodies, according to Nelson.
The one controversial aspect of the testing is when Drug Free Sport attendants go into the bathroom stall to watch the athletes urinate into the cups to prevent athletes from potentially faking the urine test. Cullen, who was tested last year, said that it caught him off guard but that he realized why Drug Free Sport has to do it.
Rachor agreed, "I think it is a good thing that someone watches, as there is a risk of athletes switching out their own urine for someone else's. It's important for them to have a protocol."
However, not all athletes feel that this method is effective. Junior Christa Haluck, who ran track and field and was tested last year, felt like she was being violated during her test. "It was one of the worst experiences. It was so awkward and embarrassing," she said.
Haluck thinks that there are less invasive ways to test students without the risk of athletes faking the test. She suggested that students be patted down before they take the test, or that athletes should be required to wear minimal clothing that would prevent them from having anything hidden.
Nelson thinks that it is effective and works to prevent drug use. "Unfortunately, in this day and age it's what we have to go through to ensure no drug use," he said.
During his time at UP, Nelson has never witnessed a positive result for the NCAA testing, which would result in an automatic year long suspension. He has however dealt with a few positive results from UP testing, which results in a two week suspension, a scheduled meeting with a counselor for educational purposes and automatic inclusion in the next testing session. If students test positive in the second test they are ineligible to play again.
Nelson said that those positive results are isolated incidents and that UP is fortunate because there are virtually no problems here.
"All athletes are success driven and intelligent enough to not want to gain unfair advantage through artificial needs," Nelson said. "The nature and philosophy of UP lends itself to deterring students from trying these drugs."
Most students don't see drug use as a problem at UP. "I think it is just the nature of our school. There are not those types of athletes here," Rachor said.
Both Cullen and Rachor think that there is not the same kind of pressure to use drugs at UP as there is at bigger schools, where competition is higher. Cullen added, "I think our coaches and the type of school we go to help. They encourage us to be good people, not just good athletes."
