Despite Warnings, Athletes Close Their Eyes to Risks of Steroids

Snapshots of football’s steroids explosion:

--Steve Korte, a 6-foot-2, 270-pound center for the New Orleans Saints, has been using anabolic, or bodybuilding, steroids since 1981, a year before he was a consensus all-America at Arkansas. About 12 of his college teammates also used steroids, Korte said recently, and about 10 of his present teammates muscle up with “the Juice,” despite risks that include sterility, liver damage and coronary heart disease.

“Look, I don’t want to use steroids,” Korte said. “But I’m a center, and any time I go against a big nose guard, like I do every week, there’s a good chance he’s taking them. So if I don’t take them, I’m at a disadvantage. And steroids do work. Last season, I took them for six weeks, and instead of feeling real sore and weak and beat-up and pounded on the day after a game, heck, I was ready to go again.”

--Richard Sandlin, a world-ranked powerlifter and former strength consultant to Alabama’s athletic program, has been advising college and pro football players for eight years on the dos and don’ts of using oral and injectable steroids. “I tell them, ‘Be careful. Don’t play Russian roulette with the shots,’ ” he said.

“But these guys will do anything. They’ll spend 50 bucks on some drugs, but they won’t spend a quarter for a new syringe. Then they’ll get cellulitis and all sorts of stuff. But the most common thing they’ll call me for is when they o.d. on Anadrol-50 (an oral steroid). Normal use for a powerlifter is one tablet a day. So these guys will call and say, ‘Look, my heart’s racing. I’m feeling dizzy.’ Then I’ll find out they’ve been taking six or seven times the normal amount.”

--A St. Louis Cardinals veteran, who asked to remain anonymous, said he believes “practically every lineman” in the National Football League has used anabolic steroids, despite the refusal of many physicians to prescribe them and federal law that prohibits their sale without a prescription. “One reason they’re so popular is because they’re so easy to get,” the Cardinals player said.

“I get mine from all over the place: The black market, physicians, pharmacists-anybody who has access to them and can be compromised will do. What usually happens is, you’ll find a doctor or a pharmacist. He follows your team. He wants to be part of your team. He wants to help your team do better. He’ll say, ‘Hey, this is my way to help you guys out.’ You’ll say, ‘I need some of this and some of that.’ He’ll say, ‘Yeah. Hey. No problem. I’ll take care of it.’ ”

Steroids, steroids, everywhere.

And who should be surprised?

Evidence that anabolic steroids have been used--and abused--by college and pro football players has been building steadily over the past three decades.

There is evidence, for example, that as early as 1963 San Diego Chargers players were swallowing steroids on the practice field. There is evidence that as early as 1973 NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was told by a House subcommittee of a club physician who had admitted dispensing steroids to players on an American Football Conference team.

And today there is evidence--plenty of it--that college and pro football players are among the biggest supporters of a $100 million-a-year steroids black market that is under investigation by the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration.

Surprising? Hardly. Until recently, the organizations that govern--and promote--college and pro football did little to discourage the use of anabolic steroids. As recently as March 1982, Dr. Walter F. Riker, the NFL’s drug adviser at the time, did not mention steroids once during a lecture on drug abuse at the NFL’s annual meeting of league and club officials.

Only in November 1983 did the NFL add steroids to its list of forbidden drugs. Only last fall did the league decide it would test players for steroid use at future training camps. Only in December did the NCAA begin testing bowl-and playoff-bound teams--and the first round of urinalyses resulted in the suspensions of no fewer than 25 players, including all-Americas Brian Bosworth of Oklahoma and Jeff Bregal of USC.

NFL and NCAA officials are hard-pressed to explain what took their organizations so long to address the steroids issue. NCAA Assistant Executive Director Dave Cawood: “That’s a legitimate question, but I don’t have a good answer for you. It just wasn’t addressed.” NFL Executive Director Don Weiss: “I don’t think steroids became an issue in football until the early ‘80s.”

If steroids didn’t become an issue in football until the 1980s, that is news to thousands of college and pro players, past and present, who are believed either to have used the Juice or witnessed its effects on others.

“Some players have told me that the only reason they’ve gotten a break in the NFL is because they took anabolic steroids back in their college days,” George Dostal, the Atlanta Falcons’ strength coach, said the other day. “I hear horror stories all the time-even about high school kids using them, which gives me cold chills. Who’s to blame? Everybody in football’s to blame. I think we all just rode the white pony too long and decided this thing was going to take care of itself. Well, it hasn’t.”

At a news conference in Miami on Dec. 26, Bosworth--he of the punk-mohawk haircut and gold No. 44 earring--attracted national attention when he lambasted the NCAA for suspending him from the Orange Bowl for using “a legal drug.”

The drug--Deca-Durabolin, an injectable steroid used primarily to treat patients who have cancer or certain kinds of anemia--is indeed legal if obtained with a doctor’s prescription. However, Deca-Durabolin is often used without prescription, in conjuction with one or more oral steroids, by athletes seeking to gain size and strength.

Bosworth, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound linebacker, said he used Deca-Durabolin for 2 1/2 months last winter only to rehabilitate injuries he had sustained at the previous Orange Bowl game. Bosworth insisted he had obtained the drug with a doctor’s prescription and used it under that same doctor’s supervision.

But he refused to disclose the doctor’s name, making verification of his claims impossible. (The four sports-medicine physicians interviewed for this story condemned the use of steroids to treat athletic injuries.)

Korte has used Deca-Durabolin, too. But unlike Bosworth, the Saints’ center said he began experimenting with “Deca” and other steroids to become a better football player.

“I first used them during the summer after my sophomore year at Arkansas,” Korte recalled. “I used to watch these track and field athletes who were throwing around those huge amounts of weights day after day. And I kept thinking, ‘I can do that, like, once a week, and I’ll be dead. But these guys are doing this every day.’ I wasn’t blind to the fact that these guys--and other people at Arkansas--were taking steroids.

“My goal was to become the best football player I could be, and I was looking for any kind of edge at all, as far as trying to make myself better to get to the pros. So I started taking steroids that summer and, right away, I felt a big, big, big increase in my strength.”

After four NFL seasons, Korte seems convinced that steroids have indeed improved his ability to perform.

Citing an example, he said: “A week before our first game last season, I was feeling real bad. It had been a rough training camp. I felt run-down, beat-up, fatigued, susceptible. My legs were hurting. My joints were hurting. My tendons were aching. I knew that if I was to perform to the best of my ability, I needed an edge.”

Over the next six weeks, Korte said he took 140 tablets of Anavar and injected 750 milligrams of Deca-Durabolin. After injecting 100 milligrams of “Deca” during the first and second weeks, Korte said he increased his weekly dosage to 200 milligrams in the third and fourth weeks.

According to the Physicians’ Desk Reference, the average recommended dosage of Deca-Durabolin is 50 to 100 milligrams every three to four weeks, although weekly doses of 100 to 200 milligrams may be required “for the treatment of severe disease states such as metastatic breast cancer, refractory anemias, etc.”

Korte said he didn’t consider his dosages to be excessive. “Some guys take a lot more,” he said. And the results, he said, were notable. “By the third week of the season, my joints started to feel good again,” he recalled. “By the sixth week, my strength was much, much, much higher.”

Satisfied with those gains, Korte said he didn’t use any more steroids last season. “Deep down inside,” he said, “I felt that the less I took, the less chance I had of getting sick.”

Although they were used by Soviet athletes during the 1950s, anabolic steroids--synthetic derivatives of the male hormone testosterone--didn’t enter the lexicon of American sportsmen until the early 1960s, after a Maryland physician, John B. Ziegler, had tested their effects on U.S. weightlifters.

One of the first football players to use steroids was Bobby Waters, a quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers from 1960 until 1969. During the 1962 season, Waters recalled last week, “I was a little underweight, so a team doctor gave me a pill called Dianabol and said, ‘Take this and you’ll gain some weight.’ I started taking it and gained about 10 pounds.”

Waters, the head football coach at Western Carolina the past 18 years, said he used Dianabol, an anabolic steroid, for about two years. “Mostly, I used samples that (the doctor) had given me.”

Waters is one of three former 49ers who contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the fatal degenerative nervous system disorder better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

The other two players, Gary Lewis and Matt Hazeltine, recently died. Waters, who can no longer move his arms and shoulders, said he is trying to determine whether his use of Dianabol and other drugs as a 49er contributed to his contracting the disease.

In 1963, Dianabol was introduced to the Chargers by the club’s strength coach, Alvin Roy (now deceased).

“During his first presentation to the squad, Alvin told us that he’d heard a little secret from ‘them Russkies,’ ” recalled Ron Mix, a San Diego lawyer who starred for the Chargers from 1961 until 1969. “He said he had a pill called Dianabol, which would help us assimilate protein--and since protein is the building block of muscle, our strength gains would be accelerated.

“Back then, athletes were still very naive, extremely trusting. Coaches and staff members represented father figures, so there was literally nothing we wouldn’t undertake for them.

“So, beginning that day, these little pills were put on a table on the practice field--and in little brown cereal bowls on our training table--and we were expected to take one pill with our meals three times a day.”

San Diego players faithfully took Dianabol, Mix said, until a young tight end asked a doctor for an opinion on the drug.

“The doctor told me, ‘I wouldn’t advise you and your teammates to use this,’ ” Dave Kocourek, now a real estate broker in Marco Island, Fla., recalled.

Kocourek showed a report on the drug to Mix, the team captain. “It was shocking,” Mix said. “It said that use of the drug could cause permanent liver damage, testicle shrinkage and on and on. So I called a team meeting and showed this literature to the guys. Most of the guys stopped taking the pills, but some didn’t. For some guys, it was frankly too intoxicating an opportunity to pass up: The opportunity to gain strength fast.”

According to Mix, steroids remained available in the San Diego training room throughout the ‘60s. But their use by football players didn’t become a public issue until 1970, when Houston Ridge filed a $1.25 million lawsuit against the Chargers, alleging his career had been shortened by the improper administration of anabolic steroids and other drugs. A Chargers’ owner said the suit had no merit.

The lawsuit--settled for $295,000--proved embarrassing to the NFL, which had just merged with the American Football League. In March 1971, Rozelle announced a “drug policy” that prohibited use of unprescribed substances. Although the policy banned amphetamines, it did not mention steroids.

Nor did Rozelle act to ban steroids after he was privately informed by a House subcommittee in April 1973 that an AFC team physician had admitted giving players steroids “to increase their size and strength,” and that a retired star player had complained of the “adverse physical impact” from having been “generally required” to use steroids, according to a source familiar with the briefing.

Asked why the NFL didn’t address steroid use during the ‘70s, Executive Director Weiss said recently, “Because I don’t think the (team) doctors were that concerned. I mean, we respond very much to what the doctors tell us. They have a society. They meet together. They’re highly respected people.”

In 1974, a Senate subcommittee looking into drug use by amateur athletes reported that amphetamines and steroids “appear to be the two drugs most commonly used.” Warning that steroid use “can lead to improper growth in youngsters, ulcers, loss of hair, liver malfunction and is associated with testicular atrophy and loss of sexual drive,” the subcommittee concluded: “There is no therapeutic basis to justify their use by healthy individuals.”

But the Hercules-in-a-bottle reputation of these drugs continued to spread, particularly as more pro and college clubs hired strength coaches, some of whom had used steroids themselves.

By the early 1980s, mail-order dealers were offering more than a dozen kinds of black-market steroids, some intended only for veterinary use. For the dedicated user, there was even an “Underground Steroid Handbook” that offered tips on buying from cheaper sources. “Obviously,” the handbook advised, “horse racetracks are an excellent environment for an industrious athlete to establish a business relationship with an enlightened veterinarian.”

Today, almost a quarter-century after they were distributed on the Chargers’ practice field, anabolic steroids remain the choice drug of many bulk- and strength-conscious football players.

“I use ‘em; everybody uses ‘em,” said the Cardinals veteran who didn’t want his name used. “Some guys are carrying around bags full of this stuff. I’ll tell you one thing: Steroids make you a hell of a lot bigger and a hell of a lot stronger. They make you faster, too. I don’t know why people get so all-flyin’-around-in-the-air about them. Hey, they ain’t going to hurt me one bit.”

“Guys use steroids because they’re under pressure to perform their best,” said Washington Redskin guard R.C. Thielemann. “Now, steroids are known to work. That’s proven . . . I don’t look on steroids as something like cocaine or marijuana. It’s not addictive. It’s just something that a player does to his body to enhance his performance so he can keep his job.” Has Thielemann ever used steroids? “Never have,” he said.

“A high percentage of the strength-position players in the NFL have used them,” said Jeff Van Note, a center for the Atlanta Falcons from 1969 until 1986. “Younger people think the best way to build their body-the easiest way-is through drugs. They’ll find out through a tough lesson that disease and, in some instances, death awaits some of those who use steroids. I know, because I trained with two people (both bodybuilders) who died from using steroids.” Has Van Note ever used steroids? “I don’t think it matters whatever people have done in their past,” he said.

Korte estimated that 60% of the linemen in the NFL have used steroids--an estimate that may be conservative.

“I know there are a few teams that use steroids and use them heavily,” Redskin center Jeff Bostic said.

“One club has dispensed steroids like candy,” said an NFL coach who asked not to be identified. “Several years ago one player from this team told me he was being forced to take steroids, and that he was concerned about his health.”

“Of course, I feel like I’m in the dark,” said Dr. Charles Brown, the Saints’ medical consultant and president of the NFL Physicians Society. “When we examined our players at training camp last summer, I asked 50 or 60 players, ‘Have you used steroids?’ and each of them said, ‘No.’ Did I believe all of them? No.”

“There’s still a hush-hush attitude about this,” said Korte. “Players feel that if somebody finds out they’re taking steroids, they’ll be called an artificial person.” Korte said he agreed to discuss his steroid use “so people will understand why we do this.”

Korte said he obtained some of his steroids last season from a New Orleans-area doctor. “A doctor who was a bodybuilder,” he said. “Some people can see where you’re coming from.”

While he was at Arkansas, Korte recalled, “You could get steroids anywhere. You could just go down to the nearest, ah, where the meatheads hang out, down there at the body-building gyms. You just talk to a few people, let them know you’re sincere, that you’re not some undercover cop or something, and you get them in a matter of days.

“Somebody always seemed to have a source. They were either buying from a pharmacist or getting ‘scripts’ from a doctor or getting them directly from a company drug rep.”

Football players at more than a dozen major colleges have admitted using steroids in recent years. In 1984, the names of players from six major colleges surfaced in an investigation that led to the conviction of Charles Radler, one of the nation’s biggest steroids dealers.

In 1985 the strength coaches from Clemson (Sam Colson) and Vanderbilt (E.J. (Doc) Kries) pleaded guilty to distributing steroids to athletes at their schools. The recent NCAA drug tests uncovered steroid use among football players at eight major colleges: Oklahoma, Stanford, USC, LSU, Auburn, Arkansas, Virginia Tech and Arizona State.

“I think some schools actually advocate the use of steroids,” said Maryland strength coach Frank Costello. “Maryland plays some football teams that are flagrant, outrageous steroid users.” Costello said he based that assertion on information he has received from “other coaches” and “Maryland athletes who know athletes at other schools.”

Maryland has been randomly testing athletes for steroid use for two years, but results never have been announced. “Have there been football players at Maryland who I think have used steroids? Yes,” Costello said.

Now there are indications that steroids have become a hot item on high school campuses. “Yes, it’s down to that level now,” Brown, the Saints’ physician, said recently.

“As an example, my son came to me last year, when he was a high-school football player, and said, ‘My coach says I have to gain 15 pounds. Do you have any pills you can give me?’ I said, ‘Where’d you hear about pills?’ He said, ‘Oh, a lot of the kids are taking them.’ ”

What to do?

In May 1985, the FBI and Food and Drug Administration began an investigation into the black-market manufacture and distribution of anabolic steroids. A year later, the Justice Department announced indictments against three alleged traffickers and the seizure of more than $2 million worth of steroids in six states.

According to a source who has extensive knowledge of the steroids black market, the ongoing federal investigation has prompted many smaller-volume dealers to find another line of work.

But the source added, “With all the money that’s to be made out there, it doesn’t take a lot of brains to figure out what kind of people are getting into this market. We’re talking about serious people. There’s one group in the Washington area, for example, that I wouldn’t want to screw with.”

The NCAA took its first official action against steroid use on Jan. 14, 1986, when it announced that beginning with the ’86 season, drug tests would be administered to 36 players from each bowl- and playoff-bound team--and that athletes who tested positive would be declared ineligible for those post-season games.

Six months later the NFL announced it also would begin testing for drugs--but not for steroids. “Pete (Rozelle) very much wanted to test for steroids,” Weiss explained. “But we were advised that there was no really mass screening process available that could handle rapid testing. Sure, you could do tests, but you might wait a year before you get results.”

According to Dr. Donald Catlin, director of the UCLA drug-testing laboratory and of the U.S. Olympic Committee drug-testing committee, rapid testing has been available since the late ‘70s. “If scientists and their technology could put a man on the moon, they could test for steroids,” Catlin said. “But an organization has to have the will to do it.”

Last fall, Rozelle decided it would be feasible, after all, to begin steroid testing at the ’87 training camps. On Dec. 9 the commissioner explained his concerns about steroid use in a letter to NFL players:

“Recently, a considerable amount of new information regarding anabolic steroids has become available through medical experts. . . . In contrast to just a few years ago, physicians now almost universally condemn the prescribing of anabolic steroids execpt for legitimate medical purposes. . . .

“The list of possible medical complications that can result from regular steroid use is growing. . . . It is recommended that you educate yourself and your teammates about the hazards of anabolic steroids and, if they are being used for other than legitimate medical purposes, make a serious effort to help eliminate such use.”

Weiss said the NFL’s steroids policy (adopted in 1983) is clear: “The use of anabolic steroids is prohibited unless it is for an acceptable, legitimate medical purpose.”

Asked if a player could legitimately use steroids to ease pain, Weiss said, “I’d say you’d have to deal with that on an individual basis.”

Brown said the position of the NFL Physicians Society is also clear: “Anabolic steroids have no place in the treatment of a football player.”

The NFL never has disciplined a player for using steroids, and it has no plans to do so at next summer’s training camps. “We’re going to treat it like we’ve treated amphetamines: If you use it, you get counseling, you get guidance,” Weiss explained. “If our tests show (a positive for steroids), we’ll go back to the player and say, ‘Look, you may be killing yourself.’ But we’re not going to say that discipline is going to kick in the first time there is any evidence.”

In the coming months, veteran players such as Korte will be forced to make a decision. “The heat is on,” Sandlin, the former Alabama strength consultant, said the other day. “Guys are now having to decide whether to stay on ‘em or get off ‘em. Lately, all of the guys who’ve been calling me have been asking the same question: ‘How can I beat the test?’ ”

“Moralitywise, it would be great if nobody used steroids; then everyone would be equal,” Korte said. “So, if they want to use testing as a deterrent for everybody and say they’re going to fine us or throw us out or whatever, that’s fine with me. I’ll abide by the rules. I’ll stop taking them. But will everybody really stay clean? Or will some guys find a way to go undetected in these tests?”

Korte said he doesn’t have answers for these questions. Nor does he have any regrets about his use of anabolic steroids. “So far, the only side effect I’ve ever had from using steroids is acne,” he said. “Knock on wood.”