A couple stories.
Kind of an interesting story on the vagaries of what college athletes can consume and the risks of falling afoul of the NCAA drug testing policies.
The NCAA conducts annual, year-round drug testing on the campuses of all of its Division I and II members. Schools may be visited more than once in a calendar year.
“We’ve put the student-athletes on notice that they can be tested at any time,” said Mary Wilfert, who manages the NCAA’s program. “A majority of the athletes support it. They understand the reason for it.”
Testers from the National Center for Drug Free Sport arrive on campus with no more than 48 hours notice. At Division I schools, they take urine samples from 26 randomly selected athletes — 18 football players and eight players from one other sport.
When the NCAA first implemented its year-round testing plan in 1990, football and track and field were the only programs affected. Starting last August, athletes in every sport became subject to scrutiny.
The NCAA also conducts random drug tests at all of its championship events and at football bowl games.
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The NCAA does not go easy when it comes to penalties. First-time offenders are banned from competing for 365 days and lose a year of eligibility. A second offense results in a lifetime ban.
In addition to that, Pitt has additional testing and punishments.
Pitt conducts random, year-round testing for performance-enhancing agents and street drugs. Athletes may be tested more than once in a year.
Athletes in all of Pitt’s sports programs are eligible to be tested. Football players are not tested more often than other athletes.
Blanc said most of the positive hits are for street drugs, not steroids.
“It’s not a high number,” he said. “Some years, we don’t have any. Some years, we have more. Overall, I would say it’s probably on a down trend.”
The first time an athlete tests positive, he or she enters a rehabilitation and counseling program. A second offense results in a suspension. A third nets either a one-year suspension or revocation of the player’s scholarship.
These guys (and girls) give up a lot to play collegiate sports. It also includes a lot of privacy.
At the other end of the spectrum, there’s this story about a Pitt grad:
Kentucky Derby runner-up Closing Argument finished ninth in the Preakness, but it still wasn’t a bad week for a guy who used to skip classes at the University of Pittsburgh to go to the track.
Long before he made his fortune in publishing and became involved in horse racing, Closing Argument co-owner Philip Cohen would occasionally prefer Waterford Park (now Mountaineer) to political science.
“I’d leave mid-day,” he said, “or I just didn’t go to class at all.”
Somewhere along the way, Cohen learned a lot.
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Cohen, who graduated from Pitt in 1966 and now has homes in Philadelphia and Florida, has gone from what he called “the worst handicapper in the middle Northeast” to an astute owner of thoroughbred race horses.
On Friday, Philip and his wife, Marcia, 59, sold one-half interest in Closing Argument to the partnership of Sequel Bloodstock and JMJ Stable. The price was not disclosed, but the Cohens were reportedly close to selling the Derby runner-up for $2 million in January before the deal fell through.
Hard to argue with success.
