NFL Ponders a Tough Plan to Fight Drugs : Schramm Says Spot Checks Are Needed for All Players

A National Football League team has just finished a routine practice and is greeted in its locker room by several men in white smocks holding trays of 45 little glass jars.

Urine tests are ordered for all.

Is drug abuse in the NFL coming close to turning this imaginary scene into reality?

Yes, says Tex Schramm. When federal marshals take Mike Bell, a defensive end for the Kansas City Chiefs, away from Arrowhead Stadium in handcuffs, and when it’s open season for rumors about any player who is having an off-season, it’s time, he says.

Schramm, president of the Dallas Cowboys and an outspoken advocate of a tough anti-drug policy, said: “This is the greatest threat to sports and the integrity of sports.

“It’s reached the point where if we’re going to have integrity in sports in the eyes of the public, we have to get rid of drugs. And the only way, in my estimation, that you’re going to get drugs out of sports is to have random spot-checking mandatory for everybody--not just to catch the ones that have been on it for a year or two, but to work on the ones that are just starting.”

Schramm’s plan is to have a league-sponsored testing task force swoop down on teams without warning.

“Nobody in the (team) organization would know when they’re going to be there so there isn’t any suspicion of somebody tipping off their players,” he said. “I wouldn’t know. Nobody would know. They’d just walk in at a certain time and (say), ‘Here we are, let’s go.’ Everybody--do the whole club.”

It’s a bold plan. It also probably would violate the current collective bargaining agreement between the players and the NFL, which says: “There will not be any spot checking for chemical abuse or dependency by the club or club physician.”

There may be a loophole, however, in that the wording reads club, not league. In fact, the ’82 agreement reached during the strike includes only two sentences about drug testing.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., agreed with Schramm that the problem requires serious consideration. That was about where agreement ends, though.

Upshaw suggested that the problem would get serious consideration when bargaining for a new agreement starts in 1987.

“My concern is the health and welfare of the player and the league,” he said. “I think you can work it out, but it’s got to be done carefully. When we did it in ’82 it was kind of rushed.”

Schramm doesn’t want to wait. “I think it’s important that it should be pursued right now, rather than wait for ‘87, (with) whatever has to be done as far as the union is concerned,” he said.

Nothing doing, Upshaw said. “We’re not going to change anything until we go to the (bargaining) table in ’87. We’re not even going to consider making any changes.

“We have an agreement we think is working fine. We have testing now. the players are tested when they come into training camp, and we feel being tested once is enough.”

The NFL is the only major sports league that mandates that all players be tested for drugs when they report to training camp. Schramm said the Cowboys are also tested at mini-camp in the spring.

“But what good does it do?” Schramm said. “They know it’s coming so they’d be pretty stupid not to pass it. Cocaine, as I understand, doesn’t have a long residual presence, anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, depending on the individual.”

Jim Anderson, the Rams’ trainer, said it’s more like 6 to 10 days. But the point is that a player who knows when he’s going to be tested will stay off drugs for a few days, so Schramm believes snap tests are the only answer.

“If you don’t have the fear of something like that, there are going to be people that play with it,” Schramm said. “I’m not necessarily after the guy that is already there--the (Steve) Howes or the (Chuck) Muncies that seem to have crossed over the line. Those people’s problems will come to the surface, anyway.

“The ones that you want to get are in that first month or two of fooling with it. They all say they can take it or leave it when they’re first playing with it, then after six months they find they’ve got a problem.”

Dr. Toby Freedman, an associate Ram team physician with expertise in drug abuse, said: “With this bickering, they’re both missing the point. This isn’t a game of cops and robbers. We aren’t trying to catch people to punish them. We’re trying to identify people so we can help them.

“If a guy is so much in control that he can quit when he knows he’s going to be tested, he has a far lesser problem than the guy who has gone beyond the volitional stage. That guy doesn’t give a damn. He’ll snort it or smoke it or shoot it right up to the time you hand him the jar. That guy is going to get caught, anyway.”

Apparently everybody in football is concerned. There just isn’t much agreement on what must be done.

Upshaw, first and foremost, is determined to protect the players’ rights. Yet, he said he didn’t become deeply involved when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana became the center of drug rumors recently.

“The only thing I did was write a letter to Joe and give him our support, and that was about it,” Upshaw said.

But when Bell was arrested for trying to purchase cocaine by telephone last week, Upshaw said: “The day after it happened I was over there . . . to meet with the team to tell ‘em what their rights were (and that) we just need one spokesman for the team to talk about it and not everyone on the team doing a lot of talking.

“I also said that Mike Bell is innocent until proven guilty. The players on the team want him back and support him. He needs a friend right now. He doesn’t need to be kicked in the pants.

“What’s ridiculous about what’s going on is that anytime a player is accused of something, he is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Nowhere else in this society is it that way.”

Montana offered to submit to a drug test if the 49ers had any doubts. Upshaw is against any voluntary tests. He has told the players not to volunteer for anything, and if the club asks a player to volunteer, it amounts to coercion.

“It is (coercion),” Upshaw said. “Just because an individual might feel it’s all right, he’s got to look at the collective mass and how those results will be used against him.

“I won’t name the team and I won’t name the player, but there was a player renegotiating a contract, so the club said, ‘Look, we want to have the guy tested because we think he has mononucleosis.’ They tested him and they didn’t even test for that. Afterward, the coach admitted, ‘We weren’t interested in mononucleosis. We were testing for drugs.’ ”

The collective bargaining agreement of ’82 specifies that “the club physician may, upon reasonable cause, direct a player . . . for testing.”

Last August the NFL office, without consulting the players’ union, circulated a memo among the teams’ front offices defining “reasonable cause.”

“Wasn’t that the most ridiculous memo?” Upshaw asked. “We finally got hold of it. It was addressed to general managers, coaches, (team) doctors and trainers.

“When I first saw it, I said the guy that wrote it definitely had to be on drugs.”

The memo listed tell-tale signs of drug abuse in three categories:

Personality: Frequent mood swings . . . well-documented unusual behavior at practices or meetings over a reasonable period of time . . . impaired judgment.

Physical Condition: Rapid weight loss . . . fat accumulation on normally trim body . . . loss of muscle mass . . . loss of speed . . . loss of endurance . . . slow to heal.

Performance: Impaired concentration . . . avoidance of pain.

The memo concludes with the note that “film documentation is very valuable . . . as are comments from trainers and strength coaches.”

Anderson of the Rams objected that the trainers, who traditionally are taken into players’ confidences, are subtly being asked to snitch on the players if they notice unusual behavior or mood changes.

“The trainer is in a no-win situation,” Anderson said. “You have to be a middle man between the players and the coaches and still have rapport with the players. It’s not fair to put the trainers in that position.

“It’s just not drugs. It’s anything. If they don’t trust us, you’ll lose the respect you should have.”

Anderson said the Rams have a better situation than some clubs, however. “We’re willing to rehab a player who has a problem,” he said.

Three recent examples are Otis Grant, Chris Faulkner and Booker Reese. All were confronted after showing some of the signs listed above, then were admitted to drug treatment centers and brought back to the team, although they were later cut or traded.

Upshaw said: “If a player shows up ‘dirty’ at the preseason physical, the doctor must consult with him, and they must decide if he needs further tests. In my mind, that’s the only reasonable cause.

“If a player is asked to volunteer, we want to know exactly what the circumstances are. We want to know about the reasonable cause. We’re going to investigate it to make sure that no player loses his rights by agreeing to something he doesn’t have to.

“It’s not fair the way it’s handed down. Anytime a team starts losing, the first thing they say is it’s got to be that. If sports was the only drug problem in our society, we could clean it up tomorrow.

“You’ve got people like Tex (Schramm) that jump up and say, ‘We need it! We need it!’ But my objection is, what are they going to do with it? They’ll use it against ‘em. You don’t go out and try to kill a fly with a dadgum elephant gun. That’s what they want to do.”

Schramm weathered his own rumor storm recently when a former FBI investigator accused five Cowboys of fixing games in exchange for cocaine a few years ago. No evidence was found to support the charge.

“It was ludicrous,” Schramm said.

Upshaw said: “He had a different position, didn’t he? I talked to Tex about it, and we agreed it was a shame that the media took it and did it like they did. Those guys are branded now, forever.

“When you put that brand on a player, he’s stuck with it for life. (If) he dropped a pass (someone would say), ‘You sure he’s not one?’ ”

Upshaw said he has been talking to leaders of other sports about establishing a universal drug abuse policy.

“Are we really interested in doing something about it or are we just trying to have a PR gimmick here?” Upshaw asked. “I’m not interested in that.”