Steroids Spoil Game Plan : Drug Test Forces Stanford’s Zentner to Miss Gator Bowl

Two weeks ago, John Zentner III, an offensive tackle for Stanford, thought life couldn’t get much better. It was, after all, the holiday season, full of cheers. And, best of all, the Cardinal was on its way to a bowl game.

On Dec. 15, Zentner was selected to the Pacific 10 all-star team. Glory hallelujah. If ever there ‘twas a season to be jolly, this was it.

On Dec. 16, though, the 6-5, 265-pound tackle’s yuletide spirit dropped like Dom DeLuise off the high dive. Zentner discovered that he had failed a drug test taken with other Stanford players a week earlier. Not only would he be ineligible to participate in Saturday’s Gator Bowl against Clemson in Jacksonville, Fla., he couldn’t accompany his teammates en route to same.

“This was the happiest time of my life,” said Zentner at his parents’ home in Canoga Park on Wednesday. “It was an 11-year dream to play in a bowl game. Then the bottom fell out,” the former El Camino Real High player said.

The drug testing of athletes before bowl games, which was approved by the NCAA last January, includes tests for use of anabolic steroids. Even though test results are kept confidential by the NCAA, when Zentner failed to show up in Jacksonville with his teammates on Dec. 20, reporters called to find out why.

Fearful that his son would be labeled a “cocaine addict,” Zentner’s father, John Jr., told reporters that his son failed the test because he used steroids for 3 1/2 weeks during the summer. “He’s so Pat Boone-like,” he said later, “he wouldn’t even smoke a cigarette.”

But like some other linemen, Zentner would look for an edge in weight training. After winning the starting right tackle position during Stanford’s spring drills in May, the sophomore returned home and began lifting weights and working out at a local health club.

After watching others gain up to 30 pounds of muscle with the help of steroids, Zentner talked to various professional athletes, coaches, health trainers and doctors--he refused to identify them--about the benefits and disadvantages of their use.

Zentner even discussed it with his father. “I didn’t believe in that stuff,” his father, himself a 6-5, 320-pound former player, said. “But, after he talked with a lot of people, he convinced me.”

Said Zentner, the son: “For an offensive lineman, you think, ‘Wow, I’m working so hard in the weight room.’ Anything you can gain that will make you stronger and faster, you have to think about.”

Still, Zentner didn’t want to drop dead. A physician advised him that the long-term problems of heavy steroid use remain unknown, but that small doses of a steroid called Anavar would produce no side effects.

Zentner received the steroids from, and was set up on a six-week program by, a “trainer at a local health club.”

He started early in July, but after three weeks, he said, he saw little additional muscle growth. In fact, he said he lost weight. He went from 273 pounds to 265.

When the trainer informed Zentner that he would need to increase his dosage from two pills a day to seven or eight, he decided to lay off the drug completely. “The trainer wanted me to get on something called Dianabol, but the doctor had told me that wouldn’t be as safe. I decided I just didn’t want to take the chance.”

From that time to now, Zentner denies taking steroids of any kind. Nonetheless, he tested positive in the NCAA screening.

“I wasn’t even worried about the test,” he said. “It had been five months. I couldn’t see myself testing positive for such a low dosage so long ago. I just didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Zentner said he wasn’t aware of the new NCAA policy of testing before bowl games when he took the steroids. Even if he had known, few expected the Cardinal to make it into postseason play, anyway.

But John Jr. said: “We were shocked when we heard about the rule. There were a lot of people who didn’t get the message.”

Another Valley-area player--USC lineman Jeff Bregel from Kennedy High--will miss the Jan. 1 Citrus Bowl after testing positive for steroid use.

The decision by the NCAA to test for drugs and steroids remains controversial. Even though some think it is an invasion of privacy, the Zentners have no philosophical problems with the testing itself. But both have concerns about keeping test results confidential. While the NCAA releases no information, the unexpected and unexplained absence of a player just prior to a bowl game is hardly a subtle clue that something’s up.

“There was supposed to be so much confidentiality with this,” Zentner said. “But when I didn’t show up with the team, it made it pretty obvious that it was the drug thing. I couldn’t even go down there with the team.”

Stanford Coach Jack Elway and John Jr. discussed the possibility of blaming Zentner’s absence on an ankle injury that occurred in the team’s last game against Arizona. “But,” John Jr. said, “he didn’t want to lie.”

Zentner has been informed by Stanford coaches that he will remain on the team. “We couldn’t be down farther than we are right now--unless Stanford turned its back on us,” John Jr. said. “They’ve reassured us that he’s a team member in good standing.”

Still, due to the fact that Cardinal teams aren’t regulars in bowl games, Zentner feels he could be missing out on his one chance. “I’m going through hell,” he said. “This is the worst time in my life. Saturday will be the worst by far--watching someone else play my position.

“I didn’t even get any benefits from the steroids and now, in the end, it really hurt me.”