By Chris Falcone

The recent revelation of a new steroid that is undetectable through testing, comes on the heels of Major League Baseball instituting their new drug policy slated to begin Thursday.

With the constant barrage of steroid allegations, including the release of a tell-all book by former MLB player and admitted steroid user, Jose Canseco, many sports fans have been left doubting the integrity of the games.

“Steroids have become part of the game,” Steve Conley, an outfielder for the University’s baseball team, said. “It’s a bad thing and it’s unfair some guys do it. It leaves you feeling cheated.”

Seized by customs agents in Canada, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced on Feb. 1, the findings of a new designer steroid meant to be undetectable. The drug, considered more dangerous and more complex to produce than Balco’s now infamous THG, was uncovered after an anonymous e-mail tipped off the agency, according to a New York Times article.

“It’s always going to be there, there’s always going to be scientists out there coming up with different ways,” Ryan Martin, strength and conditioning coach for the football team, said. “There’s always going to be those athletes willing to try stuff out.”

Although Martin does not know of any students using steroids, he believes that it does go on even at the collegiate level.

Dr. John Guthman, clinical psychologist and director of counseling services for the Saltzman Center, said the use of steroids is reaching down to younger and younger people, even before college.

Desoxymethyitestosterone, given the name DMT by WADA, was intended to be undetectable, but was apparently found before it got into the hands of athletes. According to the Associated Press, DMT would have most likely shown in drug tests since it contained traces of detectable steroids,

“We now have proof that THG was not a unique case…that there are other designer drugs,” Oliver Rabin, WADA science director, said.

What is also alarming is the nature of these new steroids. Christaine Ayotte, director of Montreal’s anti-doping lab said what is most distressing about DMT is its complexity.

“What this tells us is we have chemists with a very serious organic chemistry background that are helping the people who are distributing this substance to athletes,” she said.

Tom Dotolo, head baseball coach at the University said he feels saddened by what he sees going on in professional sports today.

“As a baseball fan it makes you a little disappointed and some of the numbers these guys are putting up seem kind of fake,” Dotolo, who played with the San Francisco Giants organization from 1991 to 1994, said. “You wonder what kind of numbers these guys would have achieved if they weren’t using.”

Dotolo thinks steroids are like anything else, meaning there will always be a way around everything.

“It’s like robbing a bank, you find the right way to do it and smart enough people will probably get away with it,” he said.

Dotolo said he never saw athletes using steroids while in the clubhouse during his playing days, but it seems more popular nowadays.

News of the discovery of this performing enhancing drug coincides with the start of the new drug testing policy in MLB. The Associated Press reported that under the new rules, agreed upon by the players union, a first offense would call for a 10-day suspension. The second offense would be followed by a 30-day suspension, a third offense, a 60-day suspension and the fourth offense leads to a year-long ban from baseball. The MLB will not be testing for human growth hormone, although it is banned by the sport under the new policy.

The NFL, NBA and the NCAA, unlike baseball, have had stringent steroid testing policies for years.

“MLB sometimes is a little bit behind the curve with some of those types of things,” Dotolo said. “But you have to remember how extremely powerful the players union is in baseball.”

This new policy has recently come under fire from many different fronts for being unanimously considered too soft on violators and repeat offenders. Chuck Yesalis, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and noted steroid expert, considers the new testing policy nothing less than a joke.

“Drug testing is for public relations. The cream of the crop of our track team was dirty and yet they passed a zillion tests,” Yesalis said in The Journal News.

Although there has been a major improvement on the previous testing agreement, Conley, a senior, also believes the penalties are not nearly strict enough.

“Ten games is nothing, guys go on the DL for two weeks and that’s 10 games,” he said. “We’re randomly tested twice a month on the collegiate level and if someone tests positive, than you are suspended for 20 percent of your games.”

On the major league level, even after violating the policy for the third consecutive time, players are only suspended for 60 days, significantly less than half a season. Conley feels the only way to get rid of the issue of steroid use is to further increase the testing policy to scare guys from doing it.

“It’s only going to get worse, they need to make an example of someone, with a big name,” he said. “I think a first offense should be the loss of a full season and the second penalty a lifetime ban. Now something like that will probably never happen, but in order to clean up the game it’s got to be severe. It’s unfortunate, but there are so many ways to get your hands on the stuff now. If you see one guy doing it than there are probably more.”

The University, however, seems to have the use of steroids under control and that is a credit to the school, Martin said. Martin has been at the University since August. He tries to show the players that hard work pays off, and also helps them try to steer clear of possible temptations.

Furthermore, Martin, who spent the previous three years at Davidson College, said at the University they do not push any supplements on the athletes, which is unique considering the quantity of the supplement market. Instead they teach their athletes to get what they need through nutrition.

“The bottom line is you can’t make up the minds of the athletes; you can’t follow them around 24 hours a day, he said. “All you can do is educate and hope to deter them from making wrong decisions.”

The scariest part, Conley warns, is not knowing the extent to which it goes on, which is something you may never. know.