Posted on: Friday, May 27, 2005
Cleaning up sports requires force of law
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
Recalling the old joke about how a camel is what they came up with when a government committee set out to build a horse, you shudder every time the feds show an inclination to get involved in regulating some aspect of sports.
Indeed, making ceremonial on-the-field appearances is one thing for lawmakers. Actually rolling up their sleeves and dictating some element of the business of professional sports is often quite another.
But not this time. When it comes to the Clean Sports Act of 2005, which would create standardized independent drug testing and penalties for the major professional leagues, this is one time when lawmakers aren't out in left field.
At least not when Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL and NHL — entities that now handle that function themselves —Êhave left a lot to be desired.
Once upon a time, performance enhancing drugs were largely confined to professional sports, and in this we include Olympians. No longer. Now, as often heart-tugging congressional testimony has underlined, steroids are a problem that has seeped beyond the play-for-pay ranks. It is a scourge that has long since found its way into colleges and high schools, with sometimes horrifying results.
With that, the pro leagues who would tell us they should be in charge of their own industry began forfeiting any standing to tell government to butt out.
As Frank Shorter, former Olympian and first chairman of the U. S. Anti-Doping Agency, has put it in various commentaries: "People who promote sports should never police them at the same time."
It is why, in many countries, drug testing and policing is run separately from the leagues that athletes compete in.
Exhibit "A" on our own shores is, of course, the enduring snooze that MLB owners and officials have taken on the subject, gladly turning a blind eye while home runs were filling the seats. Despite the accumulating evidence of performance enhancing drugs, baseball did not even begin testing until 2003. It would have been content to take wrist-slapping action even today had Congress not hauled its commissioner and some of its players into the light of inquiry.
It wasn't until the U. S. Olympic Committee turned over its drug testing to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency five years ago that there was real confidence that the USOC was serious about policing its ranks. Not until the USADA was on the job, like agencies in other countries, did athletes really get the message.
If the major pro leagues want true credibility for their product, and a measure of fan confidence, they'd turn over the same functions to an independent agency, too.
Unfortunately, we all know that's not going to happen until they are forced to it at the point of law.
Reach Ferd Lewis at lflewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
