The summer may be hot, but now it's no time for juice.
The NCAA announced March 27 that it will begin drug testing in the summer months this year. Duke, which unveiled a new drug policy in early February, has also decided to expand its testing to eliminate the window of opportunity that existed.
Although the governing body has authority to test at any point in the year, this will be the first time the NCAA has exercised that license in the summer. In 2006, the sampling will focus on football and baseball players, but athletes from any sport are eligible to be tested.
"This has been coming for some time," Mary Wilfert, the NCAA associate director of education outreach and the staff liaison to the competitive-safeguards committee, said in a news release. "We've previously been hesitant to test into the summer months because of concerns about extending student-athletes' participation in a sport beyond a traditional season and also logistical considerations.
"But the reality is that student-athletes don't take the summer off."
For the first time in Duke history, the school will be conducting its own drug tests during the summer, Senior Associate Athletic Director Chris Kennedy said. Brad Berndt, assistant director of athletics and academic services, will head up the summer testing and coordination effort as he does during the school year.
"We have left it open-ended-we are telling our student-athletes that they can be tested at any time in the year, and we have not specified whether the summer testing will just be on-campus or not," Berndt said. "Obviously there are logistical issues with testing students away from campus, but we have let them know they are subject to testing at any point in the calendar year."
Kennedy said the University views the NCAA testing as a separate process and the responsibility for ensuring the absence of drugs lies with Duke itself.
"We are asked to take responsibility, as you have seen recently, for a lot of aspects of our athletes' lives, whether it's academic, social, or even chemical-health-related-and that's something we have to do," he said.
Under the NCAA rules, if an athlete tests positive for a banned substance-which includes anabolic steroids, as well as street drugs such as marijuana and cocaine-he or she will be ruled ineligible from all regular and postseason competition for a calendar year. The same punishments will be in effect for athletes that test positive in the summer.
"When we talk about year-round drug testing, we needed to actually make it year-round," said Frank Uryasz, president of The National Center for Drug Free Sport, which administers the NCAA's drug tests. "We can't provide 60- or 90-day windows of opportunity for student-athletes to take steroids. That gap needed to be closed, and the NCAA stepped up and did that."
One of the logistical concerns with summer testing is the issue of students who do not stay on campus over the break. This issue may be heightened at Duke, where the majority of athletes come from out of state and a large number spend the summer participating in study-abroad programs or internships.
While Kennedy said the number of athletes who stay on campus for at least one summer session is rising, many athletes still spend the break elsewhere. Berndt said the University plans to, but has yet to, take inventory on where its athletes will be this summer. In addition, the NCAA has asked for each institution's schedule and may plan more testing near the beginning or end of the summer break, when more students are in town.
"It's going to be a challenge, but we believe we are up to it," Uryasz said. "We have collectors all over the country, and we have access to collectors all over the world."
Drug Free Sport also hopes to minimize the burden of tracking down athletes off campus by targeting leagues and camps where collegiate athletes often train during the summer. Uryasz said the organization is still gathering information about which leagues and camps are frequented by college athletes, but one of the most notable is the Cape Cod baseball league-a premier amateur summer program that has featured nearly 200 current major leaguers. As a training ground for players with professional aspirations, the league is also reportedly a steroid hotbed.
"I wouldn't say it was widespread, but you could definitely tell it was going on, and guys talked about it," said junior Danny Otero, who played in the league last summer. "You know the guys who have taken it or who do it over the summer and get off it for the fall, so they are ready for testing in the fall and don't test positive. So I think the testing is going to be great. It's going to eliminate those guys."
Even for athletes not on campus, the selection and notification will still go through their schools, and samples will be collected within 48 hours of notification, just as in on-campus testing.
"There is the same window for on and off campus," Uryasz said. "We believe in the day and age of cell phones, if you want to find someone bad enough, you can."
Despite logistical concerns, all parties involved see the testing as a necessary and positive addition to ensuring the purity of college athletics.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction, but ultimately our guys are responsible, whatever environment they are in, in terms of what they put in their body and how they train," Duke baseball head coach Sean McNally said. "That's what our program is about. [Taking steroids] is not something that we do, it's not condoned or accepted, so I welcome the testing."
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