CENTER OF A STORM : Hoth Says He Is Being Unfairly Singled Out in Steroid Controversy at San Diego State

Scott Hoth is a powerfully built, powerfully scrubbed, 22-year-old from El Toro who--in the past week and a half--turned the San Diego State athletic department every which way but up.

On March 18, Fred Miller, San Diego athletic director, called Hoth, a discus and hammer thrower and shotputter Tom Silva into his office and told them they would have be tested for steroid use or be suspended from the school’s track and field team.

Miller told them he had been informed that both athletes had used anabolic steroids, a tissue-building substance that some believe enhances size and strength.

Hoth, a junior, and Silva, a senior, refused on the grounds that they were being unfairly singled out.

“I never signed any piece of paper saying Miller could test me whenever he felt like it,” Hoth said.

Hoth also claimed that assistant coach Kent Pagel--a throwing coach--not only had falsely accused them, but had provided Hoth with steroids in the 1985 season. Pagel denies the charge. Hoth admitted that he had used 20 capsules of Dianabol last season.

“I’m not a saint, I’m not going to lie. I took them,” Hoth said. “But I realized I made a mistake, and I quit. I can honestly say I haven’t used them this year. I’m clean.”

The events moved Miller and San Diego President Thomas P. Day, on March 24, to suspend the Aztec track team until results of drug tests to the men and women’s track teams were completed.

By March 28, Pagel had been reassigned in the athletic department, and the track team, after most athletes had submitted to the drug test, was reactivated. Hoth took the test Friday; Silva, who was visiting his father in a San Jose hospital, did not.

The story has been a hit in San Diego sport sections. Front page after front page detailed intrigue and innuendo, and all the time, Hoth and Silva were front and center in black and white.

“Every day you pick up the paper, and there’s our names right next to a headline about steroids,” Hoth said. “It doesn’t matter that we’re innocent, our names are going to be linked to steroids for a long time.”

This does not make Hoth particularly proud. He doesn’t figure to win any popularity awards from the school’s boosters.

“I wish the week we get for spring break would last a month,” Hoth said Thursday, the day before the team suspension was lifted. “I’m not really thrilled about getting down there too soon.”

By appearances, a more unlikely candidate for controversy would be difficult to find. Short hair, long smile, Hoth is a 6-foot 2-inch, 220-pound Richie Cunningham.

“Scott’s as straight as they come,” said Tom Driscoll, a former San Diego teammate. “He’s the All-American boy.”

But Hoth did take steroids last season.

He had been recruited from Saddleback College, and though he was happy to be at San Diego State, Hoth was hoping to increase the $1,500 scholarship the school had provided.

“Dixon Farmer (SDSU head track coach) upgrades or downgrades your scholarship by your performance,” Hoth said. “The better your mark, the better your bargaining power. I wanted to get my scholarship upgraded and I heard Pagel talk about how steroids would make you stronger and throw farther.”

Hoth said he took the 20 capsules Pagel had given him over a period of a week and a half and said he noticed an immediate increase in size and strength.

But when the 20 capsules were gone, Hoth said he didn’t take any more.

He wasn’t pleased with the effects the steroid was having on his body, and he said his throws did not increase as much as he believed they would.

“The results weren’t worth the risks,” he said.

So he said he quit. He later wrote two terms papers on the subject. In both--”Steroids in Athletics,” and “Steroids and Adolescents.”--he took a dim view of the drug.

Hoth said that last season, while on Dianabol, his weight peaked at 246 pounds. This season he weighs 220 pounds.

Hoth took refuge from the controversy last week at his grandmother’s house in Filmore.

“I needed to get away, even if it was just for one day,” he said. “But the press found me up there. My grandma would answer the phone. She didn’t understand what was going on. The reporters would tell her they wanted to talk to me about steroids, and she’d say something like, ‘Mr. Steered wants to talk to you, Scott.’ ”

At home in El Toro things didn’t get any better.

With his parents, Don and Mary, visiting relatives in Arkansas, the responsibility of screening calls fell to Hoth’s 18-year-old sister, Stacey.

“He’s on vacation now,” she told one reporter requesting an interview. “Why don’t you just leave him alone.”

Hoth said: “I think she wants to protect me. The phone’s ringing off the hook. I think she got a little protective. Of course, she might have just been mad that she couldn’t talk to her friends because I was always on the phone.”

Hoth has slowly learned to cope, even laugh, at the events as they unfold.

If all the world is a stage, then in this passion play, the players have rehearsed their lines well. They say them over and over and over . . .

Hoth claims the affair started because of an intense dislike between him, Pagel and Pagel’s wife Ramona--a world-class shotputter. Specifically, he points to an incident in the track weight room. Hoth said the Pagels assaulted him. He claims Kent Pagel, who is 6-6, 300-plus, threw him against a wall twice, and Ramona, who’s 6-0, 200-plus, punched him five times.

The Pagels deny it. They say the fight went only as far as verbal assaults.

Miller has no comment.

Hoth and his attorney, Alden J. Fulkerson, claim they were informed by Miller in a March 20 meeting that Pagel was indeed the one who brought the steroid issue to his attention.

Pagel denies he was the one.

Miller? No comment.

Hoth has remained candid throughout the controversy.

“I thought he’d be reluctant to talk,” said one reporter assigned to interview Hoth. “But when I got to the San Diego State track, it was like he had this sign up, ‘Hi, I’m Scott Hoth. Talk to me about steroids.”

Hoth said: “I’ve got nothing to hide. I know that’s been said by a thousand guys before, but it’s the truth. The truth is my best defense. That and a sense of humor.”

Actually, Hoth’s best defense is his face. He looks 19, not 22. He smiles constantly. A muscled Mona Lisa, his expression puts one at ease, but leaves what he’s thinking in doubt.

The smile doesn’t show the anger he has felt throughout the ordeal. How he wanted to, “grab Miller and punch his lights out,” when he informed him of the testing.

Or how he deeply resents what the San Diego administration has put his friend Silva through. Silva spent the past week with his father, who has cancer. According to Hoth, Silva’s whole purpose of competing this year was to get to an April 12 meet at Stanford so his father could watch him throw. Silva’s father has not seen him perform in college.

“That’s all Tom was working for this year,” Hoth said. “Just to do this one last thing for his father,” Hoth said. “But they (SDSU) take the word of someone who’s just out to get us. Tom has to go up and see his father, with this on his mind, and that he might not be able to throw for his father.

“That’s why, no matter what they do, I don’t think I can forgive and forget. What they did to us was inhumane.”

Not surprisingly, Hoth doesn’t expect to be throwing for SDSU next season.

“I think Miller would be happy to give me the keys to his car if I’d take off.”

Whether he stays or leaves, what has happened to Hoth--never mind the smile--figures to stay with him for some time.