Russell Fiore is not happy with the way the National Collegiate Athletic Association is conducting its drug-testing program.
Brown's head athletic trainer said that this fall, the NCAA has been giving Brown only 24-hour notice of drug tests, forcing Brown officials to scramble to contact athletes for the early-morning tests. This prompted Fiore to recently write a letter to the association, complaining of the short notice.
Fiore, who works with the NCAA and Brown's athletic compliance coordinators to administer the tests, has to enlist help from anyone who might know the athletes to find them so they can be notified about their test the next morning.
They find themselves with "a lot of people helping to locate a lot of athletes" in not a lot of time, Fiore said. If an athlete cannot show up between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. the next morning for his test for any reason, he loses a year of eligibility in his sport.
Fiore said in the past, the NCAA has given 24 to 48-hour notice for the tests, but that the 48-hour period of notification is much more reasonable.
Every spring, fall or summer the NCAA randomly selects schools for drug testing. Fiore said testing at Brown usually occurs twice a year. Each time, 18 members of the football team are tested, in addition to eight athletes from another randomly selected team. Though testing has not occurred in the summer yet, but Fiore said he "thinks it is something they will do in the future."
Brown does not test its own athletes. Some other universities do choose to do their own testing in addition to the NCAA's, but it can cost up to $50,000 a year, Fiore said. Brown has no intention of installing its own testing program at the moment, Fiore said.
In an e-mail 24-to-48 hours in advance of the testing, the NCAA notifies Fiore that it will be administering drug tests. The e-mail will say what teams will be tested, prompting Fiore to find up-to-date team rosters from the teams' coaches. The rosters are sent back to the NCAA, which randomly selects athletes from each team to be tested. The NCAA will then provide the names of the selected athletes to Fiore, who must track each of them down.
The NCAA hires a company called Drug Free Sport to administer all of the tests. Once athletes are notified - typically the night before - they must show up between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. to be tested. Drug Free Sport officials will ask each athlete to give an observed urine sample. The athlete must provide a minimum specific gravity, meaning a relative density, and a minimum volume of urine.
"It is very, very strict," Fiore said of the testing process. He added that athletes are usually notified of results within a month.
"Our athletes would rather not be doing this," Fiore said. "They comply with this because they have to. They would rather not be getting up at seven in the morning to be drug tested."
Fiore said the athletes understand the process is necessary.
"They're not going to have a positive test anyway," he said. "We're just part of the NCAA, so we have to do it. ... You really don't have a choice. If you don't show up you're out (of a sport) for a year."
Fiore, who has been at Brown since 1979, said he doesn't remember a Brown athlete ever failing a test.
The drugs tested for range from anabolic steroids - the most common violation and largest concern - to anti-estrogens, peptide hormones, diuretics and ephedrine to cocaine, heroin, marijuana and caffeine. Among thousands of tests administered in recent years, there are typically fewer than one percent that come back positive, according to data on the NCAA's Web site.
Kai Brown '08, a defensive lineman on the football team who was tested this year, found the process to be a hassle.
Brown found the process professional but still strange. "It's kind of weird, and (the Drug Free Test official) kind of not really watches you, but he's still there," he said. But though Brown doesn't like the tests, he understands why the NCAA administers them.
"It's necessary to a certain extent because there's so much stuff out there that people can get their hands on," Brown said. The testing "levels the playing field."
AJ Tracey '08, an offensive lineman on the football team who was tested his sophomore and junior years, finds the testing necessary.
"I'm glad they require it," he said. "It's not humiliating, it's not degrading in any manner and the supervision they have during the process is very professional." He added that NCAA testing is a simple and effective way to deter athletes from cheating, and that getting up early in the morning for the tests is "not hurting us athletically or academically."
