Contreras: Voluntary Testing at Westlake Not Stringent Enough

George Contreras, coach of the Westlake High football team, has only one complaint about the voluntary drug-testing program the Conejo Valley Unified School District has adopted for his team: It isn’t tough enough. Contreras would like to see the plan become mandatory.

“This is not a case of the district picking on the football team or making us guinea pigs,” Contreras said. “We want to do this, the kids want to do this, and the parents want to do this.”

Contreras, the only head coach in Westlake’s nine years of football, is not swayed by the argument that drug testing invades a person’s privacy.

“The reality is this: You have to ask if killing yourself is more important than your civil liberties,” he said.

He believes he knows how the team will answer that question. “I think we’ll have a large percentage of involvement, about 100%,” he said.

Under terms of the program, Contreras will never know how many players volunteer for testing. Adopted Sept. 24 by a 5-0 vote of the district’s board of directors, the program mandates confidentiality. The names of five players will be randomly selected by a Westlake administrator each week. The results of the test will be known only to the player, his parents and his physician. If a player tests positive, he will not be removed from the team or disciplined.

Each test costs $25 per player. For the first year, Los Robles Regional Medical Center will administer the tests free of charge.

The program is patterned after one used by Edison High of Huntington Beach, the first high school in Southern California to adopt a drug-testing program. Similar programs are in use at Banning, Colton, Fontana and St. Bernard. Last week, the Conejo district tabled a proposal for mandatory testing at Newbury Park.

Westlake will sign up players for the program after Contreras talks to parents at a booster club meeting Tuesday. Players say they support the program because it gives them a way to say no to drugs and because it isn’t punitive.

“I think it’s a good idea and I’ll volunteer,” senior quarterback Chris Lemieux said.

Teammate Vic Topper agreed, saying, “There are a lot of drugs in sports and this shows we have nothing to hide. It’s not like you’re going to get kicked off the team. It’s just to help a player.”

Added senior Chris Mann: “This gives people a reason to say no. It will clean up any problems that exist.”

Westlake players insist the team has no drug problems. That wasn’t the case a year ago.

“There was a starter last year that was caught smoking marijuana on campus before the Newbury Park game,” Contreras said. “He was off the team instantly. We caught him in first period and he was in continuation school by third period.

“As much as anybody, I had my head in the sand. I thought I worked my kids so hard they couldn’t go through the program and use drugs. We’ve got to face our problems and deal with them. We’re not trying to hurt kids. It isn’t like we’re going to take someone to the main quad and cut his head off. We’re trying to give a kid an honorable way out, a way to say no. I’m a parent myself and if something like this came along I’d jump at it.”