Peter Diana, Post-Gazette During his career with the Steelers, special teams stalwart Mike Schneck was scrutinized like every NFL player not only for his on-field performance, but also for adherence to the league's drug policy. "We're in the spotlight. We're on TV. This is the business we've chosen. Drug testing in the workplace is a fact of life," Schneck said. Click photo for larger image. About this series This is the third story in a four-part series on the history of steroids and how they spread throughout athletics. SUNDAY: An experiment in York, Pa., plants the seed for the steroids epidemic. Read more ... YESTERDAY: A Pittsburgh attorney put the government on trial to get his client acquitted of steroids charges. Read more ... TODAY: Random drug testing is part of life for today's NFL players. TOMORROW: The ethics of steroids use will continue to perplex society as researchers explore its age-defying benefits. Audio summary A conversation with author Robert Dvorchak: Few people know how the steroids epidemic in sports really started. On Day One of the series, he introduces readers to the first U.S. athlete to use steroids to enhance his performance. On Day Two, he explores how steroid use outpaced government regulation. On Day Three, he examines the history of steroids in the NFL and Steelers. On Day Four the series explores why some Baby Boomer-aged doctors are taking steroids themselves. Your Views Join the series' author, Robert Dvorchak, for an online chat about the issues raised in his reports. The session is scheduled from noon to 1 p.m., Friday, Oct. 7. Click here to log-in as early as 11:30 a.m. that day to post your questions ahead of the session.

For Mike Schneck and every player in every NFL training camp this past summer, the routine of practicing twice a day in sweltering heat and studying the playbook also included an unannounced knock on the door at, say, 6 a.m. by drug testers summoning them to pee in a cup.

To thwart any chicanery, the players had to be unclothed from the neck down and the knee up and deliver their sample in full view of a collector, who was likely a retired agent from the FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"We all hate it. It's something we'd rather not do, but we know it has to be done," said Mr. Schneck, who was the Steelers player representative before he was waived prior to the start of the season. "We're in the spotlight. We're on TV. This is the business we've chosen. Drug testing in the workplace is a fact of life not just in football. It's unfortunate some guys have taken [steroids]. But the NFL and the players association take pride in the fact that we're being proactive. It's in our own interest."

Mandatory, random testing is the NFL's version of the prevent defense in the Age of Steroids. Nobody can say it's foolproof, but the league and its players have adopted the tightest drug-testing of any professional sport.

All the recent attention about steroids has shown the NFL to be light-years ahead of Major League Baseball in trying to curb hormonal overload. But it wouldn't be spending $10 million a year on testing if football didn't have a history that goes back four decades.

In fact, before there were policies and laws banning steroids, it was team policy to hand them out. In the training camp of the 1963 San Diego Chargers, cereal bowls of Dianabol were provided to the players by the late Alvin Roy, pro football's first strength coach. Mr. Roy was affiliated with the U.S. weight lifting team when steroids first appeared. Players were directed to take a pill with each meal by their coach, the late Sid Gillman.

No NFL team can say it was immune from steroids, including the Steelers. But even if there was an intriguing nexus involving steroids and the Super Steelers, they were hardly pioneers.

'Best we can do'

The NFL banned steroids in 1983 and began testing in 1987, with the first suspensions coming two years later. The current policy, recently tightened, was negotiated with the players as part of the 1992 collective bargaining agreement.

Players are subject to as many as six random tests in the off-season. Every player in training camp is tested at least once, for recreational drugs and for steroids. From the first preseason game on, seven players from each team are selected at random each week for additional testing. Players chosen by lot are tested through the playoffs.

But screening has been likened to an I.Q. test. It can be beaten by steroids designed to be undetectable or through the use of other drugs to mask their use. And a player can have almost four times the allotted ratio of testosterone and still pass.

"You're not going to eliminate steroids unless we control the borders and the pharmacies," said Adolph Birch, an NFL attorney whose duties include enforcement of the ban on performance-enhancing drugs. "But we can make the consequences of using them such that we deter the vast majority of players from even wanting to try and make sure we catch everybody who does. We think our policy is effective. It's the best we can do."

For a player, the knock on the door is a summons to a collection point.

A sample is placed in two containers, designated as A and B. Each sample is sealed and given a numbered code without reference to the player's name. The A and B samples are placed into a tamper-resistant package and shipped via express mail to a lab on the West Coast.

That lab at the University of California at Los Angeles is the only one in the United States accredited by the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency. It processes about 25,000 samples per year, about 9,000 of which are provided by the NFL.

Technicians feed the A sample into a high-tech device that can identify the molecular fingerprint of about 40 banned substances along with recreational drugs such as marijuana and cocaine.

If there appears to be a hit, the A sample is double-checked. If that confirmation detects a positive, the coded number is reported and matched with the corresponding number held by those in charge of the NFL program.

The player is informed, and a second phase kicks in. Any player whose first sample tests positive is allowed to be present, along with his lawyer or toxicologist, when the UCLA lab unseals and tests the B sample.

If there is a confirmation in the second sample, the player can appeal. Once that is exhausted, a player testing positive is subject to a four-game suspension without pay and is publicly identified.

Last month, Colts linebacker Kendyll Pope was suspended for a year -- the punishment for a third offense -- after testing positive for a banned substance. Since testing began, 111 NFL players have tested positive and 54 have been suspended.

Mr. Schneck said that in high school he heard stories about players taking steroids. Then in college, he saw firsthand that players gained 40 pounds of lean muscle mass in one season, so he knew what was up. And it would be naive to believe that some of the NFL players he lined up against weren't "juicing."

But he was never tempted to try them, and not because of the health risks or the shame and financial penalty of being caught.

"It never crossed my mind," Mr. Schneck said. "It was the way I was brought up by my dad, I guess. You do everything you can to try to win except cheat, and [steroid use] is cheating."

Steelers chairman Dan Rooney said team and NFL policies in place today keep steroids in check.

"Our doctors, trainers and coaches do a good job of getting the message out," Mr. Rooney said.

"Don't forget your pills"

Because steroids have been demonized as a controlled substance, it may be impossible to have an honest discussion about the depth and scope of their use.

Dennis Cook, Associated Press Steroid use in professional sports remains a high profile political issue. Last week major league pro sports executives and player representatives appeared before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Capitol Hill to discuss drug testing policy. From left are, Antonio Davis, NBA Players Association President; David Stern, NBA Commissioner; Gene Upshaw, NFL Players Association Executive Director; Paul Tagliabue, NFL Commissioner; Donald Fehr, Baseball Players Association Executive Director; Ted Saskin, NHL Players Association Executive Director; and Gary Bettman NHL Commissioner. Click photo for larger image.

"In my 58 years, other than pedophilia, I've never seen anything make people behave more secretively than steroid use," said Penn State professor Chuck Yesalis, who has spent a quarter century documenting their development and use. "The major side effect of steroids is loss of memory. Nobody remembers taking them.

There are references to steroid use as early as 1962, but it was the Chargers of the old American Football League who changed the game in more ways than one when Mr. Roy, a disciple of Dr. John Ziegler's Dianabol, was hired as as the Chargers' strength coach in 1963.

Ron Mix, a Hall of Fame offensive lineman and now a lawyer in San Diego, said Mr. Roy spoke at a team meeting about the importance of assimilating more protein to get the full benefits of pumping iron. Mr. Roy hinted at the testosterone use that Soviet Olympic athletes had pioneered.

"I learned a little secret from those Russkies," Mr. Mix quoted Mr. Roy as telling the team.

Mr. Roy then pulled a bottle from his pocket and produced pills of Dianabol, which he called a supplement. Players were to take one pill three times a day.

"Thereafter, there appeared on our training tables for each meal cereal bowls filled with the pink pills," Mr. Mix said in an e-mail response to a question.

Jerry Magee, a beat writer with The San Diego Union-Tribune, wrote about the practice decades later and talked about it in a telephone interview.

"Coach Gillman would stand up at dinner and announce, 'Don't forget to take your pills,'" Mr. Magee said.

The ritual went on for weeks until one player, Dave Kocourek, got a second opinion from a doctor not affiliated with the team. The doctor told him that anabolic steroids could damage the heart and liver plus shrink the testicles if taken for an extended period of time, such as six weeks.

Mr. Kocourek informed Mr. Mix, who was the team captain.

"I was as shocked as the doctor and my teammates," Mr. Mix said. "Testicle shrinkage! Our team was three weeks away from having the finest professional football men's choir in America."

Mr. Mix talked to Mr. Gillman, who said none of the team doctors had told him about side effects. Later, Mr. Gillman said team doctors did not believe Dianabol to be a health risk. Still, Mr. Mix wanted to call a team meeting and let the players decide, and Mr. Gillman agreed.

"At the meeting, I told the players, and many were visibly upset that the team had been providing a dangerous drug. I am not aware of any players taking the drug after that meeting," Mr. Mix said. "[We] may have had the unhappy distinction of introducing steroids to professional football, but I am relieved to say that it was a mere early flirtation and in no way diminishes the accomplishments of that great team."

The Chargers won their first and only AFL championship that year. But steroids did not disappear from the Chargers or pro football.

In fact, former Chargers linebacker Houston Ridge filed a $1.25 lawsuit against the Chargers in 1970, alleging that his career had been shortened by taking Dianabol supplied by the team through the '60s. Mr. Ridge later received a settlement of $295,000.

After leaving the Chargers, Mr. Roy became strength coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys. He is in the Hall of Fame of the USA Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association, which condemns steroid use as cheating.

Steroids and the Steelers

Jim Haslett, coach of the New Orleans Saints and a former Pro Bowl linebacker, said earlier this year that steroid use "started, really, in Pittsburgh" with the Steelers in the '70s. Following quick and strongly worded denials by the Steelers, Mr. Haslett apologized and said he meant to say that the NFL had gotten control of steroids.

The record shows that the Steelers were by no means the first team to have players taking steroids to gain size and strength or to keep up with competitors who were already using them. But there is also another side.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Steve Courson, left, and his former Steelers teammate Mike Webster autograph footballs and posters at a reunion of the 1978 Steelers team at Station Square in 1990. After Mr. Webster's death, his family said he had 'experimented' with steroids. Click photo for larger image.

Chuck Noll was an assistant coach with the 1963 Chargers. A year after he was brought aboard as the Steelers head coach in 1969, Mr. Noll hired the franchise's first strength coach -- former Olympian lifter Lou Riecke, who was part of the original experiment involving Dianabol and who also had a past relationship with Mr. Roy.

Steelers' offensive lineman Jim Clack casually talked about taking steroids to gain weight and muscle in Roy Blount's book on the Steelers, "About Three Bricks Shy of a Load." Nary a word was said about it when that book was published following the 1973 season.

Rick Donnalley, another offensive lineman, told The Cincinnati Post in 1982 that he has used Maxibolin and Anavar along with the injectable Deca-Durabolin, and that some Steelers teammates also took steroids to gain weight.

As part of his family's suit against the NFL Pension Fund, the family of the late Mike Webster, who is a Hall of Fame center, produced statements from two doctors that said Mr. Webster "experimented" with steroids.

Rocky Bleier, who was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Vietnam, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1985 that his doctor prescribed small amounts of Dianabol to him for six years. At the time, steroids were allowed for medical reasons, and Bleier had shrapnel in his foot from a grenade.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Rocky Bleier says he took small amounts of steroids under a doctor's supervision for six years while he played running back with the Steelers. Click photo for larger image.

"Under a doctor's control, taken the way it should be taken, there are no side effects," Mr. Bleier said at the time, hastening to add that kids should never take steroids.

Steve Courson, who joined the team in 1978 as an offensive guard, said he started taking Dianabol that was supplied to him by doctors at the University of South Carolina beginning in his freshman year. In a Sports Illustrated story, and later in his book "False Glory," Mr. Courson said he continued taking the stuff through his NFL career and said his usage contributed to a near-fatal heart condition.

Tom Ricketts, an offensive lineman drafted by the Steelers in the first round in 1989, tested positive for steroids at Pitt. Pitt teammate Burt Grossman also tested positive that year and was picked in the first round by San Diego.

The late Terry Long, also an offensive lineman, failed the NFL test in 1989 and later attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills and rat poison.

Mr. Rooney politely declined when asked if Mr. Noll would talk about the issue.

"He told me, 'It's over. I'm not going to preach,'" Mr. Rooney said.

Win McNamee, Getty Images Former Steelers player Steve Courson, right, shakes hands with Bobby Barnes, head football coach at Buckeye Union (Ariz.) High School after the two testified before the House Committee on Government Reform April 27 in Washington. Mr. Courson has said he started taking steroids during his freshman year in college and continued through his professional career. He said the drug contributed to a near-fatal heart condition. Click photo for larger image.

But Mr. Rooney insisted that Mr. Noll never advocated steroids, a sentiment that was echoed by Mr. Riecke, assistant coaches and players, including Mr. Courson.

"Chuck had that scientific mind. He knew about [steroids], and he was very strongly opposed to them. He told me what he told the players: There are no shortcuts. That stuff's no good for you. If you're on it, get off it. It's not going to do you any good. In fact, it'll hurt your sex life [by shrinking the testicles]. That was enough right there to convince the players," Mr. Rooney said.

For his part, Mr. Riecke said he stopped taking Dianabol when he retired from competition in 1964. Although he conceded that some Steelers gained a lot of lean muscle mass, he insisted there was no repeat of Mr. Roy's Dianabol directive.

"As far as I know, the Steelers didn't know it existed," Mr. Riecke said via telephone from his home in Louisiana. "I'll guarantee you I was not aware that anybody up there was taking them. It was never even discussed. I did not see it. I didn't know about it. I'd never recommend it to anybody. I thought it was dangerous."

Mr. Courson, who said he has been drug free for 17 years, has rebounded from the heart condition that made him do a lot of reflecting on the choices he made in life. Mr. Noll, he said, never advocated steroid use.

"He never pushed it," Mr. Courson said, "but that's irrelevant. If the commissioner of a league doesn't set a policy banning its use, teams are helpless to prevent it."

Offensive lineman Jon Kolb, who was part of the Steelers dynasty, said he never heard about steroids until the made-for-TV world's strongest man competition in 1980. He won four events but was blown away by other athletes who were bulked up on muscle-building substances.

"I think that was the first time I heard people talk about it. It was scary to me," Mr. Kolb said. "Riecke never brought it up. Never. Never. You can get pretty strong without [steroids]. When I was in college, there was a sign in the wrestling room at Oklahoma State that said if muscles were everything, a bull could catch a rabbit."

The inner circle at the York Barbell Co. remembered when Mr. Noll and Mr. Riecke flew to central Pennsylvania to pick up plates of weights when the Steelers began their weight-training program, and they nodded knowingly when four titles followed.

"They went from being also-rans to being the Super Steelers," said Bill March, who with Riecke was part of the original Dianabol experiment. "They had to know it was being used by pro football players. They were getting bigger and bigger, gaining 40 pounds of muscle in one off-season. There's no way a coach doesn't know what his players are doing. But what are they going to do, take the Super Bowl rings away?"

Perhaps the definitive word belongs to an unbiased outsider like Chuck Yesalis, who befriended Mr. Courson following the player's public admissions.

"It would be wrong to isolate the Steelers. By 1970, steroid use had entrenched itself in all the teams in the league," Dr. Yesalis said. "What the Steelers did was weight training that had not been seen before in the NFL. They had a confluence of talent and an unbelievable work ethic."

Meanwhile, football has never been more popular.

"Does anybody believe that what they're seeing is a steroid-free NFL? Not really," said Pittsburgh attorney Jerry McDevitt, who successfully defended World Wrestling Federation owner Vince McMahon from steroids charges in 1995 by attacking the government's previous lack of regulations. "If a U.S. attorney wanted to become the most unpopular man in town, he'd investigate where the steroids are coming from for a football team. He'd clean it up, but the team would go 0-16. He'd be the most unpopular man in town."