Et tu, NFL?
Late last week, news broke that a number of pro football players violated the league’s substance abuse policy. The big-ticket name was New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister, but others included the Williams Wall, Minnesota’s defensive tackle combo of Kevin and Pat Williams.
The stain of steroids and other narcotics has already driven Major League Baseball into the shadow of the NFL. America’s pastime is no longer played on the diamond but on the gridiron.
Certainly the transgressions of McAllister and others do not even begin to compare to the rampant steroid abuse in professional baseball. When Peter Gammons sums up the history of baseball, he counts the early 1980s through the early 2000s as the Steroid Era. Every record is tainted, be it pitching, hitting, baserunning or fielding.
Most famously, of course, is the demise of Barry Bonds. Barry’s fall from grace should be in the Cliff’s Notes for hubris. It began in jealousy as he watched McGwire and Sosa soak up national headlines in their drug-fueled frenzy of a home-run battle, then suffocated his career into a collection of pulled hamstrings and mass public disdain.
Yes, the record books say he has hit more home runs than any other player in MLB history. And yes, there’s an argument to be made that even if he was using steroids, so were the pitchers he was hitting off of. But therein lies the problem.
Steroids have so thoroughly infested the Game That Ruth Built that even the simplest records are no longer simple. Every accomplishment of the last 20 years will, or at least should be, held in question. We may never know just how deep the parasite burrowed and instead just have to guess from the scars it leaves.
So for a football freak like me, even the slightest whiff of steroids near the NFL is enough to trigger sensations of dread and fear.
To its credit, the NFL has had a much tougher drug-testing policy than the MLB. The structural setup of the NFL has helped keep the enemy outside the gates for some time as well, while most Major League steroid-users began their habit somewhere in the minors, where tests were even more lax, hoping to get a leg up and a call to The Show, in the NFL, you’re in or you’re out, and if you’re in, you’re tested randomly and regularly.
More often than not, the only thing that shows up in football drug tests is the occasional trace of marijuana (paging Ricky Williams?). Occasionally, college prospects will test positive at the combine, like Northwestern’s Luis Castillo, who now plays with the San Diego Chargers, before the 2005 draft. The specter of substance-enhancers that reared its ugly head last week, however, changes the equation entirely.
The NFL Players Association needs to learn from the mistakes the baseball players’ union made. The MLB Players Association was so intent on protecting its members that it fought tooth and nail to keep drug testing out of baseball. In doing so, they’ve essentially chucked two decades of baseball history into the crapper.
If the NFLPA embraces tougher drug testing and tougher enforcement schedules — not as harsh as the “three strikes” policy in the MLB, but something with real deterrent value — it sends a message that the integrity of the game is professional football’s primary goal. Failing to do so could create a public opinion nightmare. Just ask MLBPA Executive Director Donald Fehr.
As athletes get bigger and yet still faster, as they get stronger and yet more agile, questions will invariably linger about whether all accomplishments were achieved with sweat, blood and God-given talent. With a little bit of luck, hopefully football fans will always be able to know the answer is yes.
And now, a brief aside to end this week’s installment: Since you’re reading this on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008, Election Day is less than a week away. Go. Vote. The Venable precinct may be a little nuts, but Momma Wiley and many other great volunteers will be there to help make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.
When you do go vote and being an intelligent reader I know you will, keep in mind the new Virginia ban on campaign paraphernalia inside a polling location. If you have an Obama T-shirt, wear a U.Va. sweatshirt over it. If you’re rocking your McCain-Palin buttons, put them in your pocket for the five minutes you’re inside. Tell your friends to be careful about what they wear to the polls and be ready to throw on a poncho in case you forget.
That is all. Next week, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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