For those football players guilty of using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, their career may end on June 14. The University of Waterloo, Canadian Interuniversity Sports and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport agreed to disclose to the public the results of the university wide steroid testing of football players next week. The result will surely make a great impact on the current policies of the university as well as the Canadian sports bodies.

Aside from the University of Waterloo, random steroid tests were also conducted on neighboring universities such as Wilfrid Laurier, the University of Guelph and McMaster University. This is in response to the insinuation that there were rampant doping in the Canadian football teams.

The CIS have already caught steroid users in the past but the numbers were not alarming. Since 1990, the CIS only reported 56 cases of positive steroid tests and 45 of them came from football. But the arrest of Nathan Zettler, UW player, for trafficking anabolic steroids prompted the CIS and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport to conduct massive steroid testing in universities. This is the first case where a college football player was involved in the distribution of steroids and human growth hormone. Authorities are still investigating if these steroids were sold to his team mates and other football players in other universities.

Joe Surgenor, Waterloo Warriors defensive lineman, said in an interview that Zettler did not offer them any anabolic steroid. They were also surprised that Zettler was involved in the illegal distribution of steroids and human growth hormone. Surgenor is one of the players who admitted taking steroids when the UW conducted a mandatory test for all of its football players. He also alleged that the use of performance enhancing drugs could be rampant in Canadian football.

The coaches of other universities included in the random testing are optimistic that there will be no positive result on their team. The University of Guelph athletic director Tom Kendall said that he was absolutely confident that his team was drug-free. McMaster head coach Stefan Ptaszek also said that he will be shocked if the UW test result includes the leaders and star players of the Warriors.

Because of the incident, athletic directors of most universities decided to intensify their steroid education programs. According to Peter Baxter, Wilfrid Laurier University’s athletic director, they have to be vigilant in their own campuses. “We have to talk about what the health risks are with our own students. Let’s be proactive here,” he said.

Baxter commented on the current anti-doping program of the CIS. The CIS has a strict anti-steroid policy but due to lack of funding they could not implement large scale testing. “It’s not a perfect testing system. We should be asking, ‘How can we do it better?’” Baxter added.

In the estimate of Surgenor, there could be at least 7 to 13 players who may be into steroids and PED’s in college football. If that is true, it will be first time for the CIS to issue bulk suspensions.

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