The View from Courtside

The death of Len Bias and the resultant resignation of University of Maryland coach Lefty Driesell have suddenly sharpened debate on just who's accountable for drug abuse on the basketball court. To assess the risks--of both drugs and drug tests--Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell grilled an all-star panel of pro and college coaches.

Jim Valvano, Head Basketball Coach, North Carolina State

When I was coaching the freshman team at Rutgers in 1967, if you'd told me that in 20 years the most important issue for a coach would not be how to break a zone press but whether or not to institute drug testing, I'd have said you were nuts. But that's exactly where we are.

Athletics gets too much ink in the newspapers, for good or for bad. But because of that, we can be leaders on the drug problem. We can make headline news--on the front page, not just in the sports section. We should demand that our athletes be students and that they be drug-free. I am in favor of mandatory drug testing.

What surprises me is the amount of resistance to drug testing by people who say that it's a violation of individual freedoms. We're not talking about prayer in school here, we're talking about life and death. (continued on page 148)View From Courtside(continued from page 58) Everyone is trying to express the problem graphically, but nothing can be more graphic than seeing a talented player like Len Bias end his life at 22. I do understand individual rights, but given the problem at hand, the testing is justified.

We've had a drug-testing program at North Carolina State, but it's been voluntary. We in the athletic department think that mandatory drug testing is appropriate, and we want to enforce it strictly. On the first offense, the player is gone. We aren't a rehab program, and we aren't saying that certain substances are OK. We ' have 24 varsity sports here, and not one coach has a dissenting opinion.

We've just completed our first round of random drug testing this year, and we haven't had one athlete, male or female, test positive. But you temper that with the knowledge that the most important drug we're trying to catch--cocaine--is the most difficult one to test for.

That's why the faculty members here are not quite sure whether or not they want drug testing. Marijuana remains in your system for a long time, so if somebody smokes a joint in December and you test him in late January, you're going to catch him. But cocaine goes through your system in 36 hours. So you can spend big money on tests that tell you your players are drug-free, and they may not be.

There's a lot of speculation about what causes the drug problem. Is it pressure? I haven't seen that with the kids I've coached. These kids grow up with pressure. If you're a good basketball player, that's established when you're a high school freshman, and you're going to live with guys like me coming from all over the country to watch you play. Athletes today are more mature because of that.

The kids are still playing a game and enjoying it. [Former North Carolina State star] Spud Webb said that the place he feels most at home is on a basketball court. Everyone wants to put the blame on this "win at all costs" ethic of coaching, but kids can cope with winning and losing better than anything else they have to cope with. Maybe the pressure comes afterward, in social situations and media situations. Maybe we have to prepare kids better for their lives off the court.

Mike Krzyzewski, Head Basketball Coach, Duke University

I'm a hard-liner, a disciplinarian, but I have a real problem with drug testing. We don't have it at Duke. I'm not convinced that that's the way to go. I would question whether drug testing is being used to help the kids or if it's just a move to cover your ass. Why should a college player have to subject himself to that? He's not getting paid.

Our emphasis on the drug problem is in the wrong place. I'm looking at the other side: where it starts, not where it finishes. I'm angry at the people who sell drugs. Why don't we use the money that goes into drug testing to hire undercover people on the campus?

We probably have not done our jobs as far as counseling the kids or increasing drug awareness is concerned. We have a drug-awareness program at Duke, and we keep in as close touch as we can to help a youngster through a problem that might lead him to take drugs. But because of recruiting responsibilities, we are taken off the campus at critical times, so we don't have the interaction we should with our players.

Most of the time during the nonplaying season, the coaches are out chasing recruits. During the season, if we have a free night, we're going out to see a high school kid for the 12th time, even though we already know he's good enough to play in our program. I always ask a recruit, "When you're playing at Duke, do you want me on the road or with you in practice?" They all say, "I want you in practice."

But still, if one coach keeps sending a player flowers all the time--in other words, showing up at his games--that player may be swayed by that. That's where the N.C.A.A. could step in and limit the evaluation period. The only thing that's really enforceable in recruiting is the dead period, when you're not allowed to be on the road. We need more dead periods.

Red Auerbach, General Manager, Boston Celtics

I've been an advocate of unannounced drug testing from day one. I know that it's an invasion of privacy, but there comes a time when you've got to put this altruistic civil rights stuff down the toilet, find out who's using drugs and take it from there.

Athletes are targets because of their leadership. Drug sellers approach them in 50 ways, because they know that if they get an athlete hooked, other students will say, "Hey, if my hero does it, what the hell; I may as well do it, too."

That's why it's so important to have drug tests. If a player starts in with drugs, you can spot it early, call him in, have a long chat and change his whole mode of life. And more drug tests should be done on a high school or even junior high school level. A high school athlete is less mature and less aware of the ramifications of getting involved, so he's a better target. When the kid goes from there to college, the contact has already been made.

I'm not a great believer in the psychiatric approach to drug counseling. I do think college players are entitled to some help with their schoolwork because of the amount of time they spend away from class. If somebody counted the number of days that players miss because of practice, road trips, tournaments, charitable appearances and TV, it would really add up. They've got to have somebody to help out. That's why [Georgetown's] John Thompson and [Indiana's] Bobby Knight are so great. They tell their players, "Hell, we won't let you go; that's all."

Colleges should also give athletes five years on scholarship to complete their coursework, because of the unusual demands on their time. For example, if a team makes the Final Four in basketball, the players are out pretty near a month. That's ridiculous. Unless the guys are geniuses, it's impossible for them to keep up with their studies. Len Bias failed, and people made a big issue of it. Everybody blamed Lefty, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. There was no way the kid could get to class.

The thing to do about the drug problem is to continue building awareness, so that the ballplayers will know that they'd better watch their step. You've got to make the penalty for taking drugs strong enough, because the biggest deterrent is fear: fear of not getting a scholarship to play ball, fear of being thrown off the team, fear of being deprived of a professional career.

Denny Crum, Head Basketball Coach, University of Louisville

To our knowledge, we've never had a drug problem at Louisville, but that doesn't mean we couldn't. We've instituted a prevention program, and we drug-tested all last year on a random basis. We have our own equipment, and we'll continue to use it.

Last year, in the pre-season, we also had a professional group that does drug-prevention and rehabilitation work spend 16 hours in a seminar with our team. We're doing it again this year. I was not in the meetings--this was just between the professionals and the players. They talk about all aspects of drug abuse: what it does, what people think it does, how to say no, how to know when somebody is involved.

Education will make the difference. I'm really pleased to see the President and Nancy Reagan make a public issue of it. I think that in itself could help. And to me, that's a step in the right direction. When they get behind something, I think people will fall in line.

Jerry Tarkanian, Head Basketball Coach, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

You need drug testing. I don't think you can continue to have intercollegiate athletics or even professional athletics if the paying customer doesn't trust the kids who are playing. I certainly wouldn't want to see a pro team playing and find out that the guys were on drugs.

We're in our third year of random drug testing at UNLV. The first time we did it last year was when school started, and three kids tested positive. They went home for the summer, got caught up with their friends and made a mistake.

The first time that happens, we bring the kid in for consultation. The second time, we notify his parents. The third time the player tests positive, he's suspended for the season. It's never gotten to the third time for any of our players.

Larry Brown, Head Basketball Coach, University of Kansas

We've been giving drug tests at Kansas, and that worries me. I always tell the kids I trust them, and here I am testing them for drugs. But if drug tests help prevent drug use, you've got to be in favor of them. I understand the right of privacy, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about stopping kids from doing something that can lead to deaths like Lenny Bias'.

We have a doctor and a laboratory that administer the test. They pick the kids at random. I'm trying to change that. We're going to take them all, but the dates will be staggered so that they won't know when they're coming up. The first time a player tests positive, the trainer notifies him and he goes for counseling. The second time, he goes for more counseling, the family and coach are notified and he's suspended, but he retains his scholarship. The third time it comes up positive, he's suspended and he loses his scholarship. But I don't think we would carry out the third step. I think that we would try to stay with the kid as long as we could.

Drugs were just becoming popular when I started coaching. I watched some of the greatest young players do drugs and I was not able to help. [Former Denver Nuggets star] David Thompson and I had an unbelievable relationship. Then he got involved with drugs and became distant. At the time, I didn't know what the problem was, and when I found out, it was almost too late. Kids who are on drugs won't allow you to help them. They've got to make up their minds themselves. With[former New Jersey Nets player] Micheal Ray Richardson, I was a little bit more aware. I helped take him to the hospital in New Jersey, but he was already gone.

Before these guys started on drugs, our relationships were real strong. Then, after the drug use started, I'd see them becoming distant from me and their teammates. I saw a tremendous deterioration in them physically, in both their appetites and their losses of weight and coordination. The thing that hurts is that when I was coaching at UCLA, the kids who remembered David would say, "Hey, this guy's the greatest." But he changed. I call David all the time, asking him to come back to work with us at Kansas, but we can't even reach the guy.

You know what else bothers me? Reading about how Len Bias was 21 class hours short on his academic requirements. If you go over the general population of college students, it takes four and a half years for most of them to graduate. And for most of these senior ballplayers, with all-star games and touring, the second semester of their senior year is a waste. Bias' school record doesn't mean that Lefty Driesell didn't do a good job. I look at the 21 hours Lenny had left, and I think he did a pretty damn good job. He was within half a year of graduating. If this is a problem, then why don't the schools stop freshman eligibility? You know who that would hurt? It would hurt the coaches and the universities that want quick fixes for their teams. But it would help the kids.

I get really mad when I hear the charge that our basketball players are under too much pressure. I think that comes from a bunch of administrative guys who are making an excuse, saying we spend too much time with the kids. The kids love to play. I don't think they feel pressure and I don't think pressure is put on them. This is the greatest experience of their lives.