After two former baseball players admitted last April to using steroids while at Duke, the University is scrutinizing its performance-enhancing drug policy.
A committee formed by President Richard Brodhead last spring hopes to have a new policy solidified by the end of the semester and in place for the next academic year.
Brodhead asked the five-member group, led by James Coleman, senior associate dean for academic affairs at the School of Law, to reconsider the performance-enhancing portion of the drug policy less than one year after the University made punishments more lenient for its current drug policy. The committee is not looking at revisions to the recreational drug policy.
Former baseball players Aaron Kempster and Grant Stanley told The Chronicle they injected themselves with steroids during the summer of 2002. Kempster and Stanley said other teammates were also using steroids while at Duke.
"This clearly came out of the discussion around baseball last spring," Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said of the review. "There was a general view we should step back and take a look at it."
The re-examination also comes at a time of intense national attention to performance-enhancing drug abuse at all levels of sports. Earlier this month, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill instituted a zero-tolerance policy for steroids but maintained more lenient punishments for recreational drugs.
"All of the institutions around the country are probably going to evaluate their current policy because of the negative publicity that students or Olympians or general public folks get when they test positive for something like that," said Brad Berndt, assistant athletic director for academic services and director of Duke's testing program.
Duke's current policy was last updated in August 2004. The first-offense penalty changed from suspension from 10 percent of a team's regular-season contests to therapy and notification of the athlete's coach, teammates and parents. No suspension is listed in the current policy for first-time offenders.
After a second offense, players are suspended for 40 percent of their regular-season games and stripped of their eligibility after a third positive test. The policy does not differentiate between performance-enhancing drugs and recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin.
"I think one of the things we've struggled with, 'Is it really practical to have a single drug policy?'" Trask said. "There are recreational drugs that are different from performance-enhancing drugs. And is a one-size-fits-all policy really the right one?"
Freshman wrestler Wade Van Sickle said he was in favor of a stricter policy for steroids.
"I think it should be one strike," Van Sickle said. "You know what you're not supposed to do, and you sign a contract saying that you won't."
Testing a urine sample for anabolic steroids costs more than an ordinary test for recreational drugs. Andrea Wickerham, NCAA drug testing program director for The National Center for Drug Free Sport, said although an ordinary "street-drug" test costs between $20 and $25, a test for known anabolic steroids costs more than $200.
"I doubt that we will go to complete full panel steroids on all tests," Trask said.
Brodhead's formation of the committee is one of several ways the school's top administrators have exerted increased control over the athletic department.
Trask said that many athletic departments have been quasi-independent of their school's administrations in the past, but those relationships have changed over the last decade.
"I don't think there's any confusion in the athletic department that it works for the Allen Building," Trask said. "I think there used to be, but I think that's all gone."
North Carolina is one of the first schools in the NCAA to institute a zero-tolerance steroid policy. Like Duke's current policy, athletes at UNC can still test positive for recreational drugs three times before they lose their eligibility. North Carolina will not look for steroids in each test, said Steve Kirschner, UNC associate athletic director for communications..
"We expect our student-athletes to be accountable for their actions," UNC Athletic Director Dick Baddour said in a statement when he announced the school's new policy. "Anabolic steroid use is a direct threat to fair play at all levels, but it is a particularly dangerous concern for young athletes."
The NCAA's current steroid policy is a two-strike rule. It imposes a one-year suspension for the first positive test of a documented anabolic steroid and strips the athlete of all eligibility after a second positive test. The NCAA does not have any rules for each school's individual policy, and NCAA testing is sporadic.
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