Drug Testing’s Time Has Come in Sports

It can happen to nice guys and troublemakers, stars and bit-players, rookies and veterans. Anybody.

Drug addiction. Or at least drug abuse.

It just doesn’t go away. Alan Wiggins stumbled once and stumbled again, and he is gone from the Padres. Chuck Muncie stumbled once and stumbled again, and he is gone from the Chargers. But the problem stays.

Those were the most notorious of cases hereabouts, at least in recent years. There have been others, and there will be more.

Sometime today, in fact, Charger linebacker Mike Green is scheduled to be arraigned on a charge that he possessed a gram of cocaine when arrested by police last week.

Reactions? A great guy. A solid guy. Always took care of himself. Who would have thought Mike Green would ever be arrested for alleged cocaine possession? Haven’t we heard that song before?

It can happen to anybody, right?

What has intrigued me most about the aftermath of Green’s arrest has been the reaction of two of his teammates. They were outraged--not at Green, I sensed, but rather at the specter of drug abuse.

It won’t go away, and Linden King and Dan Fouts said they wanted something done about it.

They are to be applauded because it is time. Beyond time, in fact.

As King said the day after Green was arrested: “Mike’s a good friend and I hate to see him in trouble, but it’s time to put a stop to this sort of thing. People assume we’re all drug addicts, and that’s just not true.”

However, a few professional athletes have caused a dark cloud to shroud their colleagues as well. If one or two get caught, how many who have not been caught are involved? Like it or not, that is what the public is whispering.

A few days later, Fouts addressed the problem much more specifically: “I would not object to undergoing urinalysis on a random basis . . . Drug abuse is certainly not as widespread as it may seem sometimes, but in order to contain it, I would not oppose a hard-line approach. I could live with it, and I’d almost welcome it to help clean up the game.”

Players’ unions have steadfastly opposed mandatory testing because they say it represents an invasion of privacy. I guess it could be argued that such a program would infer guilt rather than presume innocence, not exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they assembled the Constitution a few years ago.

However, since the overwhelming majority of athletes are clean, I would think they would be overwhelmingly in favor of a program that would blow away the cloud of suspicion above their heads. It would be one of those “no news is good news” situations.

As for invading privacy, I presume that none of the testing would be done at home plate or on the 50-yard line. No one would have to know which players were being tested or when. The only players who would be subjected to any embarrassment would be the ones foolish enough to be dabbling with illegal drugs.

I also have heard players ask, “Why us? Why are we different? Why should we be tested? We’re human beings, just like everyone else.”

Not exactly. Athletes are different. Baseball players, for example, make an average of $363,000 per year because they are different. They may not play baseball any better than the guy next door sells insurance or the guy across the street paints houses, but they make the big bucks because they play a game which appeals to the hearts and hopes of a nation.

That same insurance salesman can have problems with drugs, maybe even get arrested for possession. He becomes a faceless name in a small news story, probably quietly loses his job. His scenario, equally painful and stressful, is played in obscurity.

Athletes are paid what they are paid because there is fame involved, and they pay a price for that fame. Their problems hit the front sports page. Like it or not, that is the way it will be. If the public wasn’t interested, these athletes would be playing their games on sandlots for fun rather than on national television for six- and seven-figure salaries.

To carry that same thought further, the athlete has a responsibility to those who follow him. And he has a responsibility to those who pay him and those who play with him.

I certainly can’t blame owners for asking for drug testing of their employees. An athlete on drugs gives the other side an advantage, and it doesn’t have to be a very big advantage to make a difference at the top level of competition. If I am an owner, I want to know who is giving away that edge. I have a right to know.

And all of the athletes who live the clean life and take care of themselves also have rights. They have a right to get out from under that cloud of suspicion.

I think it’s about time they exercise that right, because the principled stances taken by their unions have allowed the guilty few to blacken everyone’s eyes.

This is one problem that really could go away, at least in professional sports, if only the players themselves will take the steps to make it happen.