NCAA Stiffens Drug Penalties, Steroid Testing

The NCAA voted overwhelmingly today to stiffen the penalties for drug use and begin year-round steroid testing of athletes.

Under the new measures, first-time offenders could lose a year’s eligibility, and those who test positive a second time could be banned for life.

The NCAA tests now only at championship events and bowl games. If tested positive, NCAA athletes face only the loss of eligibility in postseason competition for 90 days.

The year-round testing will cost the NCAA $1.6 million. Both changes take effect Aug. 1.

Delegates also voted today to offer scholarships to incoming athletes for summer school before the freshman year.

The NCAA launched some measures from the Presidents Commission’s reform package, designed to ease the time burden on athletes and give them a better chance to compete in the classroom, on Tuesday. (Story, C7.)

But there’s a price.

Eliminating three games from the 28-game limit of the basketball season, a move approved by delegates, could cost some schools up to $1.5 million a year and cause cutbacks in sports that do not earn ticket sales.

“It’s big money sorely needed,” Brad Hovious, athletic director of Texas-El Paso, said. “Two or three basketball games can pay for three or four non-revenue sports.”

Indiana Athletic Director Haydn Murray estimated that the Hoosiers would lose $600,000 a year. Kentucky could lose about $375,000 for three fewer home dates and Texas about $150,000.

Jake Crouthamel, athletic director at Syracuse, which seats 32,000 in its Carrier Dome and leads the nation in attendance, would not say how much his school would lose. But a source close to the program estimated that three fewer home games could set Syracuse back $1.5 million.

It took the NCAA five ballots and four hours of parliamentary wrangling and power struggles to kill, then revive and finally pass the reduction in basketball games, which begins with the 1992-93 season.

“It was not a pretty victory. It was a messy victory, but I think we got it done,” Wake Forest President Thomas Hearn, a member of the Presidents Commission, said after the final vote.

Added UCLA Chancellor Charles Young: “The presidents stood our ground and fought and fought.”