Problems In A Turned-on World

"No, he could hardly stand up," recalled Dr. Hanley.

"Sure, you can defend that," says Joe Kuczo, veteran head trainer of the Washington Redskins and Georgetown University, upon being told of the Baughman incident. "You do things in the big game you might not do otherwise. But the catch is that everything is getting to be a big game. The one you win or lose in September is just as important as the one in November. A pro football training camp used to be a fairly relaxed place. Now they are banging a week after they get there. What goes on in July or August is real important to a rookie trying to make the team or to an older fellow struggling to last one more year. The coaches get worked up to the point that it is a life or death matter whether Joe Zilch is ready for a Tuesday practice," says Kuczo.

While his own exuberance or ignorance may cause a physician to recommend or permit questionable drug practices, he is by and large immune from outside pressures in the matter. An obvious reason is that most team physicians are not financially dependent upon their sports medicine practice-Therefore, short of withdrawing his complimentary passes, there is not much leverage a player, a coach or even an owner can exert on a physician to give, say, Benzedrine if he doesn't want to. But the situation with trainers is quite different. They are full-time employees of the club and usually paid less than the lowest-salaried player or coach. They lack a physician's authority and status. They are with athletes and coaches every day, all day, while physicians are not. They have, or are thought to have, the keys to the drug cupboard. For most physicians the problem of ethical drug use is an academic one, like that of virtue in a nunnery, their principles never being seriously challenged. Trainers, on the other hand, work in the athletic streets, and they are frequently tested

"I know of a case," says Gene Donnelly, trainer for the Anaheim (Calif.) High School athletic department, "where a coach came to his trainer with Novocain and a needle. He had this hotshot halfback, a high school kid, with a real bad ankle. The coach did not have guts enough to ask the doc to give the shot, but he wanted the trainer to stick a needle in that ankle. The kid could really have been hurt, it was that bad. He might have been finished for good in sports."

"And what did the trainer do?"

"In that case," says Donnelly, "he told the coach to go to hell. He said he didn't need any job that bad,"

Not so long ago a trainer for a large, athletically prestigious university quit or was fired, depending upon who is telling the story off the record. The trainer's version is that a new football coach coming to the institution brought along with assistants and playbooks a contraband supply of DMSO. The trainer was not consulted or informed about the drug. The coach simply administered it himself. By and by, the trainer was looking for a new job.

"I had this kook who coaches or does something with a girls' track club come up to me," says a West Coast trainer. "He's got these kids—grade school and high school girls—running in little two-bit AAU meets. He wants to see if I can get him Benzedrine. Can you believe it? I told him if I had a daughter I'd punch him in the mouth. Maybe I should have anyway."

An example of how athletic pressure, ambition or maybe just ignorance at a sub-medical level can result in what charitably can be called dubious drug practices occurred a few years ago at the training camp of the San Diego Chargers. The story was told by Dave Kocourek, now an offensive end for the Oakland Raiders, but then a member of the Charger team.

"I guess this anabolic steroid business must have started on the Chargers around 1963 or right in there somewhere. One guy I can remember who got involved was Howard Kindig. He came to us as a highly touted center and linebacker from Los Angeles State. He was long and lean and very quick, and they wanted to put weight on him, so in addition to using the weight program run by our weight coach, Alvin Roy, they started pumping him full of Dianabol [a popular anabolic steroid], and sure enough he gained about 30 pounds.