NFL MEETINGS : Random Steroid Tests to Begin

The NFL will begin random testing of its players for steroids this summer, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced Wednesday.

“I think this will solve the steroid problem,” Tagliabue said of a program that will subject every player to the possibility of testing on four occasions during the year.

Under the new plan, implemented unilaterally by Tagliabue, the first tests probably will come during the May mini-camps, with tests also at the start of training camp and four times during the regular season.

A coded lottery will determine which players will be examined on any given day during or after the season, Tagliabue said.

“Theoretically, you could be tested once, twice, not at all, or four times,” he said. “It will be a deterrent because no player will know when he’ll be tested.”

“That’s pretty drastic,” said Ram Coach John Robinson. “They obviously think the problem is drastic.”

The NFL announcement was made after 6 p.m., EST. Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., could not be reached for comment.

Tagliabue said he had run the idea past Upshaw, and, speaking for him, said Upshaw agreed that “something has to be done.”

Tagliabue presented no specific details of the drug-testing plan. Unlike most issues under consideration at the NFL’s annual convention, the particulars of this program were sketchily described.

The commissioner answered almost every question with the same phrase: “That’s being determined.”

So far as he could say Wednesday, he has no idea, for instance, who will administer the tests.

Thus the program was announced to use the media to alert the players.

“I assume the players read the newspapers, at least some of the time,” Tagliabue said.

In recent years, testing in the work place has been controversial. Courts have considered unannounced testing as a violation of rights of privacy.

For example, during the administration of former commissioner Pete Rozelle, an NFL program requiring unannounced testing for street drugs was disallowed.

But Tagliabue, a lawyer, said: “We’re prepared to go to court. We don’t expect to be sued.”

Bill Fralic of the Atlanta Falcons, chairman of the NFLPA committee on health and safety, has said that the league is less likely to be sued on steroids than on street drugs. Fralic is an outspoken opponent of steroids, and Tagliabue quoted him frequently.

A player testing positive will be suspended for 30 days, Tagliabue said. For a second violation, the penalty will be a year’s suspension.