DRUG TESTING IN HIGH SCHOOLS : A Voluntary Plan Is Drawing Some Support

When the Edison High football team takes the field in September, Coach Bill Workman will call a play that has been almost universally applauded by his peers--drug testing for his athletes.

Workman’s controversial testing plan is voluntary but coaches and administrators contacted by The Times throughout the Southland are watching with interest and generally backing his plan to combat drug abuse on the high school level, where most--including players--say the problem is widespread.

So far Workman is the only coach on record to have gotten district approval for voluntary testing. Workman said other sports at Edison, in Huntington Beach, will probably follow suit. “I have yet to receive a negative comment from parents or from players,” said Workman, who announced his program in May. “Actually it’s been quite the opposite.”

Workman said he is not worried about opposition from civil libertarians because the program is optional, and added, “I don’t care what they think. Somebody’s got to dare to be different.”

In Workman’s plan, a player, with the consent of his parents, can volunteer to be tested for the presence of drugs in his system by having a urine sample taken at a cost of $25. Results would be sent to the player’s personal physician, where only his parents will be able to obtain them.

“There’s no obligation to tell anybody the results,” Workman said. “Not school officials, the athletic department, the coach . . . nobody. The results are the parents’. If they want to throw them in the trash can, they can do so.”

Workman’s program drew positive support from Ray Plutko, commissioner of the California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section, which administers athletics for much of Southern California.

Plutko said anti-drug programs and symposiums have been sponsored by the CIF, but that a testing program like Workman’s must be approved by individual school districts. “We set the tempo--I think Edison’s follow-up is commendable and hope it works. Our role is to provide leadership and information.”

Most information is that drugs and alcohol are readily available to teen-agers and are being widely abused. One Gardena High football player estimated that 85% of the school population uses drugs. A Morningside High basketball player said there is no action on the school’s Inglewood campus “but there’s a lot of trafficking right outside the school.” A North Torrance High football player said, “In school in general, I’d say there’s a major problem. There’s a lot of stuff going around.”

“This isn’t something that dropped out of the sky,” Workman said. “A football team or any other team is still a cross section of society. It’s totally unreasonable to think it’s not happening. I hope it’s not on our team.”

Jim Brownfield, the football and track coach at Muir High in Pasadena, said, “I don’t think there’s a coach in the country that can say, ‘I know my kids don’t use that stuff.’ It (drug use) is astonishing. It’s in high schools, junior highs, even elementary. It’s an epidemic. I’m for testing at all levels of competition, from junior high through the pros.”

Brownfield said his own policy is: “The team knows if they’re involved, they’re immediately suspended.” Most of the coaches interviewed have similar standards. “Any kind of program is important,” he said, “because you can get to ‘em early enough to save ‘em.”

Workman said his testing program “may change a life style or two” but said he hoped its most positive aspect would be to remove the temptation to experiment. “These are good kids,” he said. “A lot might have the guts and brains to say no if you remove the social pressure.”

Banning High Coach Chris Ferragamo said he tries to put that kind of pressure on his team. “We come at ‘em all the time, every single day, every meeting, about drugs,” he said. “If our kids are caught with drugs, anything, they’re off our team, they’re out of school. Our team enforces it themselves. We’ve had some guys caught and they were gone.”

Though the Los Angeles Unified School District hasn’t formulated any plan for athletes, Ferragamo said, “I think Bill (Workman) might kick off something that could pick up steam. It’s probably a good thing for kids today.”

Most teams have informational programs for their players, usually a talk or a presentation from an authority or law enforcement official.

First-year Artesia High football Coach Vince LaRosa said, “What we’re trying to do is get someone from the police to talk before the season. We’ll have a team meeting where we set goals and make sure the guy gets his point across. As far as testing every kid, I don’t really believe in it right now. We’re trying to get them not to want to do it, not just have a deterrent (during the season). You can’t control these kids 24 hours a day.”

Fred Fuller, longtime football coach at Culver City High, said, “We have a code of ethics that players sign at the start of the season. That (drug abuse) is covered along with other things you’d expect of a high school athlete. We don’t really feel we have much of a problem with the kids who come out (for the team) and stay.”

“A bigger problem that doesn’t show up is alcohol abuse because that’s something kids can do on weekends, away from school. We have had isolated problems with drugs but that doesn’t seem to be prevalent. It seems like you don’t see people walking around under the influence like you did 10 or 12 years ago. But I could be wrong--sometimes the coach is the last to know.”

Indeed, Culver City basketball star Marvin Nelson said, “There’s a lot of weed around school.” Nelson added, however, that he does not see a drug problem among the school’s athletes--”I know there’s none on the varsity (basketball) level.” He said a testing program “wouldn’t bother me--I’d do it every day.”

All the athletes questioned said they would willingly comply with testing, and all felt their teams were clean. “I guess testing is good in some ways,” said Edwin McKinney, a college-bound forward on the Fairfax High basketball team. “The fact is you can see who’s taking drugs. Our policy is we talk about it, have discussions. . . . We try to avoid (drug use)--I don’t see the purpose for it. We’re together and we watch out for each other.”

Leon Covington, a highly recruited forward at Morningside, a school located in an area known for drug trafficking and gang activity in Inglewood, said the school’s basketball team has “no drugs, no gang colors, no gang related symbols. If you’re caught (using drugs) you’re automatically kicked off the team. It’s a big drug area but there’s none on the team.”

And if Coach Carl Franklin started testing, Covington said, “I’d take it. The whole team would do it.”

Jim Tulette, a probable preseason All-American lineman at North Torrance High, said Coach Steve Schmitz addresses the team at the start of the season about usage but doesn’t have any hard-and-fast rules. “He says the same thing every year,” said Tulette. “He doesn’t approve it, don’t bring it around school. Anybody caught doing anything, he’ll be off the team.”