Tommy Chaikin, former South Carolina defensive lineman,...

Tommy Chaikin, former South Carolina defensive lineman, said he was driven by steroids to the brink of suicide and told Sports Illustrated that team coaches and doctors indirectly encouraged his use of the drugs for more than 3 years.

Chaikin said he began taking various growth-enhancing drugs during the spring of 1984 as a South Carolina freshman. By the fall of 1987, Chaikin said he was suffering extreme anxiety and other symptoms from his steroid use to the extent that he sat in his dorm room with a loaded .357 magnum and contemplated suicide.

“My finger twitched on the trigger,” he said. “I was in bad shape, very bad shape. From the steroids.”