Suits could spur drugs crackdown

There is a developing group of lawsuits out there that will affect sports at many levels and open some doors the business of sports has long hoped would remain closed.

This week in Illinois the family of deceased Northwestern University football player Rashidi Wheeler added the makers and distributors of performance-enhancing drugs to a lawsuit they previously filed against the university for the player’s death two years ago.

The university had already sued these companies saying the supplements, admittedly taken by Wheeler, induced an irregular heartbeat that claimed his life during a practice. That such suits are springing up should come as no surprise to anyone.

There is no question that supplements, including steroids, are as common in college and pro sports as cleats and jerseys. There is also no issue that deaths and physical harm are increasingly coming to athletes using such drugs.

Just how responsibility for such damages is to be apportioned and whether such drugs are the culprit are the legal issues.

Teams and universities are concerned that they may suffer enormous damage awards if the law says they knew or should have known that the drugs were being used and that such drugs posed a danger to the athletes. Coaches and medical staffs at these levels fear for the same reason.

As with smoking cases where cancer-suffering patients have filed claims against tobacco companies, there is the issue of how much responsibility rests with the athletes. This question becomes even more complicated as the use of performance-enhancing drugs seeps down to the high school level.

What teams and universities see all too clearly is the potential for damage to athletes using such items and the wide dissemination of such information. It becomes increasingly difficult for such parties to bury their heads in the sand and claim no knowledge of the dangers.

The issue then is what to do. Preventive law focuses on acting to protect oneself from such liability by acting in advance in a reasonable manner. What does that mean in the case of coaches, medical staffs, university athletic directors and presidents, and professional teams?

There is no good answer to that question, but the growing number of lawsuits dealing with that issue has raised a red flag at every level of sports. One thing is becoming clear. The days where questionable supplements sit in full view in lockers while coaches and administrators turn their heads as they walk by are ending.

What do concerned parties do when a player shows up for a season bulked to the hilt and claiming weight training is the reason, when anyone around the games knows it’s more than that?

Look for a lot more forms to be signed by players saying they have not and do not use supplements that are illegal or prohibited by the team for which they play. Also, we may see a real effort by teams and institutions to eliminate enhancing drugs entirely.

Athletes feel they cannot compete with those who use the drugs unless they use them, too. That is the driving force behind sales. A crackdown will have to be across the board and effective to break that cycle.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.