The Dealings of Voorhees Fell Through Cracks at CSUN : Drugs: Because of the cost, school has no testing program to detect the usage of illegal substances by its athletes.

It could have happened anywhere.

But it didn’t. It happened at Cal State Northridge--right under the noses of school officials, who say there was nothing they could do about it.

Barry Voorhees was an aspiring professional football player, a two-year starter for the Matadors at offensive guard in 1988 and ’89. And in his spare time, between football and schoolwork, he sold cocaine, steroids and other illegal substances.

A Times story on Wednesday chronicled how, in the span of three years, Voorhees went from a steroid user to making armed deliveries of cocaine kilos for an unidentified Colombian connection.

He did this, apparently, without leaving a clue for Northridge officials.

Bob Hiegert, Northridge’s athletic director, said athletes with drug problems, or those who know of other athletes with problems, are encouraged to seek guidance from counselors, coaches, athletic administrators and trainers.

Otherwise, he added, Northridge is forced to “make the assumption that our athletes are clean if they say they are.”

Drug testing--at a price tag of $220 per test, per student--is “cost prohibitive” at Northridge, Hiegert said, adding, “We would spend more money on that than any other segment of the athletic program.”

Voorhees was arrested on suspicion of possession for sale of a controlled substance on Nov. 17, 1989, six days after he helped the Matadors defeat Southern Utah, 41-30, in the final game of his senior season. It was then that detectives found an enormous stash of drugs, drug paraphernalia, weapons and cash in the Northridge home he shared with his wife Tyree and a former teammate, Rodd Weber.

The same day, detectives searched a compartment at a Granada Hills storage outlet from which they had witnessed Voorhees remove a package in October. There they found hundreds of more boxes and bottles of steroids.

Lisa Hall, Weber’s girlfriend and a former all-conference softball player at Northridge, was the registered renter of the storage space. But she said she had no idea that steroids were stored there.

“I was totally innocent on the whole thing,” Hall said, “and yet I get screwed over by a guy who tells me he loves me, my best friend (Tyree) and her husband.”

Hall said she rented the space in the spring of 1989, intending to store belongings there over the summer when she moved back to her parents’ home in Thousand Oaks.

“I didn’t know what they were putting in there,” Hall said. “I didn’t care as long as they paid the bill for it.”

Even after being questioned by detectives over the phone, Hall said she did not know what actually had been found. “They just told me there was drugs in there,” Hall said. “I didn’t have any idea what kind. I assumed steroids because I knew Rodd and Barry both used them.”

It was not until months after Voorhees had been arrested, Northridge athletic officials said, that they were informed he was in trouble with the law.

And until Wednesday, they still did not know to what extent.

A letter from Northridge football Coach Bob Burt attesting to Voorhees’ work ethic and other positive traits is among court records on file in connection with Voorhees’ 1990 conviction for selling cocaine.

But Burt said he knew few details of Voorhees’ drug dealings when he wrote the letter on his behalf.

“He told me it was a steroid thing,” Burt said. “He said they were charging him with something that had to do with cocaine, but he insisted they had no proof.”

He also said Voorhees exhibited no telltale signs that he was smuggling narcotics between practices and games.

“He missed a few practices. He had a fever or the flu or stuff like that,” Burt said. “As far as the steroid stuff, I talked to him about that. But what was he going to tell me? He lied to me.”

Hiegert said he considered the Voorhees story “a sad testimony about a kid who has gone the wrong way.”

Added Hiegert: “From every indication I had on him, he was a very hard-working kid.”

Voorhees, 28, is out on bail awaiting the outcome of an appeal of his conviction. He is about to begin his second season as a starter for the Barcelona Dragons of the World League of American Football.

According to court records, Voorhees admitted to detectives that he used steroids as early as 1986, when he enrolled at Santa Barbara City College with the hopes of pursuing a professional football career.

He also told detectives that he started selling cocaine, the hallucinogen Ecstasy, speed and marijuana after meeting Weber and moving to Northridge.

According to summaries of an interview he had with a Santa Barbara probation officer, Voorhees said he and Weber were partners in the drug business. Using the money Voorhees made selling steroids, he and Weber bought cocaine by the ounce and split it up into smaller quantities to sell at a profit.

Weber, who told detectives he had used steroids in the past, was not charged with a crime. At Voorhees’ home, detectives found what they determined were debt and owe sheets that included the names of Jim Crane and Lou Green, former Northridge football players.

Reached earlier this month at the Dragons’ training camp in Orlando, Voorhees said both men purchased steroids from him.

Green and Crane could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A former Northridge assistant coach also was mentioned in the paper work seized by detectives, but Voorhees said his entry stemmed from a cash loan.

Burt and Hiegert claim the drugs are no more prevalent at Northridge than they are at other public institutions of similar size. “This is not an indictment against me or against our football program or against the school,” Burt said. “It’s an indictment of our society and (Voorhees’) values. It’s not anything that I or the athletic director or the school president or any professor has any control over.”