Athletes give views on doping

Like thousands of college athletes every year, Utah safety Steve Tate walked into a locker room one morning late last month and urinated into a cup.
    The athletic department required the test to demonstrate Tate has not taken any banned drugs. Tate said he had nothing to worry about.
    "They picked a married guy with a kid," Tate said. "Chances are, I'm probably not going to" fail.
    But some college athletes and those who have played in college would like to see Tate and their other peers tested more. A Salt Lake Tribune investigation has found great disparities in collegiate drug testing, and some athletes wonder whether enough is done to ensure collegians are not artificially enhancing their performance.
    "With all the stories, with people coming out now today, they should probably test for steroids and not just regular drugs," said Jessica Ohanaja, a sprinter and hurdler on the Louisiana State track team. "You have some college students who are probably taking steroids, but they don't check for them, so they are basically just running with the drugs inside of them and then by the time [of a national meet] it's out of their system."
    The NCAA selects athletes for random steroid testing at events such as its championship track meet, but when LSU tests its athletes it sometimes screens for performance enhancers and sometimes just for street drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Ohanaja says she knows she is not always being tested for steroids.
    She says she does not look at her competitors and wonder whether they have an advantage over her. But testing varies from campus to campus and state to state. The athletes in the states of Washington and Colorado are not subject to random testing due to court decisions there.
    "I don't even remember being tested at Washington State," said Kristen Johnson, who played volleyball there from 1998 through 2000. She finished her college career at Missouri, where she said she was tested in the preseason and once randomly.
    At Washington State, drug testing "was never talked about," Johnson said. "No one worried about it."
    Not everyone is calling for more and better testing. University of Arizona does not test for steroids at all, and that's OK with Jordan Brown. Brown played baseball for the Wildcats.
    "They do a good enough job, but there's always going to be ways to get around [the testing]," Brown said.
    Brown said not many college athletes can afford performance enhancers. Brown played last season for the Cleveland Indians' Double-A affiliate and was tested four or five times for performance-enhancing drugs. Minor league baseball also has provided Brown more drug education than he received in college, he said. Brown says classes, which start in spring training but can be given again any time, are longer, more frequent and more in-depth than what was provided by Arizona.
    Most schools consider educating athletes on what they cannot ingest - and what penalties might befall them if they do - a key component of their testing programs. Another key component is the ability to test an athlete any time.
    Derek Peltier, a senior on the University of Minnesota hockey team, said the threat of the random test is a big deterrent. Peltier said Minnesota never tested him until last season, but he still felt as though the Golden Gopher drug policy was effective.
    "There's no sense in risking it because you do never know when they're going to come in," Peltier said.
    Peltier does not think doping is a problem on the ice.
    "I've actually never heard of it in hockey," he said.
    Many schools make it clear in their policies they can test athletes at any time for steroids and other drugs. But it's up to the school whether they screen for the substances that can increase muscle mass or decrease recovery time.
    Justin Paysinger, a junior center on the San Jose State football team, said the Spartans have a good testing program that includes testing for steroids. Paysinger said he favors more frequent testing and for the WAC to develop its own testing program, similar to what the Big Ten and Big 12 have established.
    "You shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Paysinger said. "I'm all for whatever it takes to keep it clean and keep the game fair."
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    * MICHAEL C. LEWIS and LYA WODRASKA contributed to this story.