ICoachUSA Blog

There are plenty of 280-pound offensive linemen in Texas high schools who have never been tested for steroids or performance-enhancing drugs, but there are rail-thin cross country runners who have lifted their arms and taken the needle.

When Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst championed the testing program for the state’s 1,300 public high schools in 2007, his intentions were pure.

The sports pages offer weekly reminders that drug-enhanced cheaters exist — from Major League Baseball and the NFL to the Tour de France and track and field — and it makes sense to deter young athletes from taking steroids in high school.

So with Dewhurst leading the charge, the largest steroid-testing program in the country was allocated $6 million to randomly select between 20,000 and 25,000 of the state’s estimated 740,000 student-athletes at public schools.

But this is a program without teeth, one hamstrung by political concessions and bowing to political correctness, and while some believe random steroid testing has been an effective deterrent, others can rightly argue that it’s a complete waste of money.

The University Interscholastic League, in charge of implementing the program, has reported only 21 positive results out of more than 50,000 student-athletes tested since February 2008.

Last spring, not a single positive result emerged from the testing of 3,308 student-athletes.

The validity of the testing program has resurfaced this fall because of large budget cuts inflicted on the program. The flush annual budget of $6 million just three years ago has been slashed to $750,000 this year.

While some in Dewhurst’s camp call testing a “win-win” situation, there have been few cheaters caught, although one could argue that some athletes are scared away from steroids because of the possibility of being tested.

Yes, these tests hardly reveal the true number of athletes who have dabbled in performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe because of the type of athletes randomly selected for testing.

During the 2009-10 academic year, 6,441 tests for steroids were administered to UIL athletes. Only two came back with positive results.

Among those tested were 798 soccer players, 617 basketball players, 374 tennis players, 149 cross country runners, 149 golfers and 293 volleyball players.

With all due respect to distance runners, there has never been a whisper about steroid abuse in the cross country world.

The 2,380 tests administered to athletes competing in soccer, basketball, tennis, cross country, golf and volleyball could have been used on, say, some of the beefy football players who were bypassed. Or a few more baseball power hitters or the track athletes with perfectly sculpted bodies.

But that’s not how the law was adopted, and the state’s football coaches would have barked if the program was aimed solely at their sport. Same for those coaches in baseball or track and field.

With so few student-athletes testing positive for steroid use, don’t be surprised if the testing program is eliminated in a few years. No use spending significant money on something that ferrets out only one or two cheaters a year.

In the meantime, the skinny girl who plays JV basketball has just as good a chance to be randomly selected for drug testing as the 280-pound football player we hear about every Friday night.

Lynchburg, VA – Energy drinks are marketed as a quick way to give you a boost, but the Virginia High School League says the drinks have no place on the playing field. The VHSL is banning them from high school sports.

At Tuesday’s Lynchburg School Board meeting, officials will discuss how to implement this new policy.

The VHSL found that many athletes were overusing these drink, because the drinks promise to be helpful for athletes. But, experts say young athletes could do much better without them.

In their colorful cans and cool designs these drinks pull in many athletes, promising to give boost their energy or amp up their performance. Athletic Directors say it may be good for some just not those in high school sports.

“Certainly there are some people who could use them maybe long haul truck drivers, but it’s not something that should be used in athletics,” said E.C. Glass High School Athletic Director, Chip Berry.

While these drinks do provide a quick boost of energy, health experts say they have a list of drawbacks many Berry has seen first hand.

“I’ve seen the effects of dehydration on kids and it’s not pretty to watch. Anything we can do to take steps to protect our kids we need to do that,” said Berry.

And, Dr. Thomas Eppes at Forest Family Physicians says continued use of these drinks can over stimulate the heart, cause diarrhea, and is habit forming.

“You can become mentally hooked to them, because you feel it. How many of you adults drink a cup of coffee in the morning because it gets your going?” said Dr. Eppes.

Coach Berry says at E.C Glass, athletes are warned about the dangers of these drinks, but the new VHSL regulations take it a step further.

“If you’re discovered having these on your bench during the course of a contest you could be suspended from post season play that’s how serious they are about this,” said Berry.

And, all the promises these drinks make about vitamins – doctors say there’s still no substitute for good training, and a healthy diet. Now, drinks like Gatorade and Powerade are still acceptable on the playing field.

In light of Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio suffering a heart attack over the weekend, Paterno was asked if there’s more stress involved in college coaching today. “There’s stress in everything in this day and age today,” JoePa said before later adding, “We’re in a very public world. And if you happen to be, to get into something where there’s that much interest that would be in the kind of football that they’re playing in the Big Ten or in most of the conferences today that we see on television, yeah, there’s stress. But I don’t think it’s any more than anything else.”

A new coach education course – Fundamentals of Coaching Basketball – is now available through the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) at www.nfhslearn.com. This course is the newest addition to the NFHS Coach Education Program.

Fundamentals of Coaching Basketball includes basic and advanced skills in offense and defense and will help individuals to develop a coaching philosophy appropriate for students. The course also provides tips on effective communication with an emphasis on a positive learning environment.

Fundamentals of Coaching Basketball is divided into four units: Introduction to Coaching Basketball, Teaching Skills for Offense, Teaching Skills for Defense and Game Organization.

Don Showalter, boys basketball coach at Mid-Prairie High School in Wellman, Iowa, and the 2009 USA Basketball Developmental Coach of the Year, developed the content for the course. Showalter is 424-176 in 26 years at Mid-Prairie and 540-268 in his overall 36-year career. He served 12 years, including seven years as chair, on the NFHS Coaches’ Quarterly Publications Committee and rejoined the committee last year for a new four-year term. He also is a member of the High School Today Publications Committee.

Clark Kellogg, the lead color analyst for NCAA basketball games on CBS Television and newly named vice president for player relations of the Indiana Pacers, is the host for the course. Several top college basketball coaches provide insight throughout the course.

The NFHS Coach Education Program was started in 2007, and more than 140,000 coaches have taken the core course — Fundamentals of Coaching. Forty-five of the 51 NFHS member associations have adopted the course.

Fundamentals of Coaching Basketball is the eighth sport-specific course available through the NFHS Coach Education Program. Other sport-specific courses are available for football, soccer, softball, cheer and dance, spirit safety, wrestling and volleyball.

The NFHS offers coaches the ability to become Level 1 certified as an Accredited Interscholastic Coach. In addition to the Fundamentals of Coaching course, coaches must complete NFHS First Aid for Coaches, or its equivalent, and one of the sport-specific courses or Teaching Sport Skills, and then can apply for certification online.

All NFHS coach education courses are available at www.nfhslearn.com.

Former NBA player Charles Barkley publicly admitted recently and – without remorse and – that he borrowed money from agents during his time playing college basketball. Not only does Barkley think this apparently widespread practice is completely OK, but he also believes that college athletes should be paid a stipend by the university they play for. Barkley justified his beliefs by stating, ‘The colleges don’t give us anything. If they give us a pair of sneakers, they get in trouble. Why can’t an agent lend me some money and I’ll pay him back when I graduate? and rdquo;

Barkley’s justification is missing a crucial point: The colleges do give athletes compensation for their talents in the form of scholarships, and those scholarships can be quite hefty, depending on a player’s talent.

It is possible that Barkley wasn’t ignoring this fact. Maybe he just feels that academic recompense isn’t good enough. It’s obvious he believes that college athletes deserve cold, hard cash for their abilities. This is dangerous territory.

Once money enters the equation, college athletes can no longer be considered amateur athletes. By paying their players stipends, universities would be making college athletics into a downright profession. Such a move could have some disastrous side effects, despite the undoubtedly good intentions behind it.

Incredible disparities already exist between the levels of funding for different sports inside of universities. That disparity would only increase if college athletes started getting paid. For example, a basketball star would certainly be paid more than a tennis star. That is, if the tennis star gets paid at all. Plus, the money to pay the athletes would have to be rerouted from other funds. It is very likely that those other funds would be the money set aside for the smaller sports.

And let’s not forget that college athletes are, in fact, students. They are supposed to be going to classes and earning decent grades. They are, after all, attending an academic institution. There’s already a vicious tug-of-war between a college athlete’s dedication to sports and his dedication to class work. If they start receiving money for playing sports, they could very well lose all motivation to attend classes at all. As far as they are concerned, they’ve got a job now. But what happens if that athlete doesn’t make it to the major leagues, as most of them won’t? They have no backup plan because they didn’t earn the degree they were supposed to be going to college for in the first place.

The University of Arkansas football program has its sights set on winning the Southeastern Conference championship and BCS national title this season. Doing so would likely help football recruiting, provide additional athletic department revenue and boost national exposure to the athletic department and the UA at large. 

A championship also would bump the compensation of Coach Bobby Petrino to more than $3 million. 

Petrino, as is the trend with college coaches across the country in all sports, has performance-based incentive clauses built into his already substantial contract.  

Winning a national championship and the SEC title in the same year would net Petrino a $250,000 supplement to his $2.7 million annual compensation package. (he also can receive $150,000 per year in deferred compensation as an incentive not to leave before the end of his contract.) obtained through the state’s Freedom of information Act.  

Bonuses built into Petrino’s contract are among the most lucrative of those offered to UA coaches, according to documents obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Act. Possible incentives range from a $500 attendance-based payout for women’s basketball coach Tom Collen to the $1 million bonus men’s basketball coach John Pelphrey would collect for winning conference and national championships in the same season.  

Proponents of such a system argue that remaining competitive in college athletics today calls for more than six- or seven-figure salaries when compensating coaches. Incentive-laden contracts are the norm in the increasingly competitive world of major college athletics. Schools in a power conference like the SEC, where the average operating budget tops $75 million each year and the demands of coaching are at an all-time high, are required to pay handsomely for coaches.  

College athletic departments have adopted additional forms of compensation for top employees much like more traditional businesses. On top of a base salary coaches have a number of bonus tiers and other moneymaking opportunities built into their contracts. Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long said schools must offer more than salary to attract top-level coaches.  

“That’s part of that evolution,” Long said “You know, as the market changed, we deal in a marketplace for coaches and as that has changed and gotten more competitive there are different pieces that come along with contracts.  

“It really has been an evolution. If you look elsewhere there have been evolutions in compensation packages, so we’re not a whole lot different than in a lot of [businesses].”  

The University of Arkansas football program has its sights set on winning the southeastern Conference championship and BCS national title this season. Doing so would likely help football recruiting, provide additional athletic department revenue and boost national exposure to the athletic department and the UA at large.  

Economic Impact
Arkansas paid out more than $117,000 in athletic achievement bonuses for 2009-10. That figure could easily reach seven figures if Razorback programs begin to consistently compete for national championships. 

Petrino wasn’t even the highest-earner in 2009-10 at $25,000 for guiding the team to a Liberty Bowl appearance. He got no additional money for winning that game.  

Baseball coach Dave Van Horn realized $27,751 in bonuses for advancing to the NCAA Regional and Super Regional tournaments. Mark and Rene Cook, the married couple who are co-head coaches of the UA’s gymnastics program, guided the team to the NCAA Super Six and collected a combined $20,168.  

Other notable payments include $16,990 to Women’s Track Coach Lance Harter for a Top 15 finish at the NCAA Indoor meet. Men’s Track Coach Chris Bucknam earned $10,000 for a Top 5 cross country finish and Brad McMackin netted $10,833.33 for a NCAA Regional appearance.  

Women’s Tennis Coach Michael Hegarty got $4,000 for overseeing a team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.  

Gone are the days that salary bumps from fundraising arms such as the Razorback Foundation and a courtesy car are enough to entice top-flight coaches. Once perks likes football or basketball tickets, golf and athletic club memberships became industry standard, high-profile coaches began asking for more. And athletic directors seem more than willing to comply, especially in revenue-producing sports of football and basketball.  

Jon Pritchett, CEO of the sports and media investment firm Club 9 Sports and who contributes articles on the business of athletics Forbes.com, said the biggest increases in incentives have come the last five years. Not coincidentally, the money invested and generated through college athletics is in the billions.  

“I think for the programs that have the most at stake, and that’s pretty much all the SEC schools, there is a cost to being competitive,” Pritchett said. “The customers — boosters, season ticketholders, alumni — require a certain amount of competitiveness.  

“There’s obviously lots of pressure. There’s a high likelihood of getting fired if you’re not successful. Or if you’re successful for a sustained period of time, that is a significant amount of economic impact to the university.”  

Arkansas operated with a $65 million athletic department budget in 2010. More successful programs mean additional revenue for the athletic department.  

Academic Achievement
Coaches at Arkansas can earn performance bonuses for both academic and athletic achievement. Incentives are paid to some coaches for maintaining favorable graduation and academic progress rates and Arkansas cut checks for $112,950 in academic bonuses for 2009-10.  

The NCAA began publicly releasing Academic Progress Rate data in 2005. Schools are asked to maintain at least a 925 on a 1,000-point scale. Failure to do so can result in losses of scholarships and practice time.  

Both could have a direct impact on a team’s on-field performance, which is often tied into the money a sport can generate. Poor performance leads to fewer paying customers and less revenue opportunities. 

Therefore there is more focus on academics than ever before, and that’s led to schools adding incentives for classroom performance as well.  

Academic bonuses have only recently become a staple of contracts. Jeff Long, who has worked in administration at schools in the Big 12 and Big 10 conferences, said scholastic achievement payments are a natural byproduct of the NCAA’s evolving focus.  

“It hasn’t been out there nearly as long, but I think it comes right along with the emphasis on graduation rates and APR and all those things,” Long said.  

Potential academic payouts built into Arkansas contracts range from $500 for some non-revenue-producing sports to $200,000 for Pelphrey and Petrino if certain graduation success rates and APR scores are realized. Pelphrey needs a 950 APR and 70 percent graduation rate to earn $100,000, while Petrino’s goals are a bit higher at 990 and 75 percent. 

Sometimes achieving the bare minimum isn’t even required to generate additional income. Take Pelphrey and men’s basketball, for example.  

Pelphrey inherited a program on the brink of APR disaster and has said 12 of 13 players were academically ineligible when he was hired. Part of Pelphrey’s deal — negotiated in 2007 — makes him eligible for a $25,000 bonus if the program gets to a 920 APR score, a mark that is five points below the NCAA minimum. 

Responsible Spending
Questions arise about how responsible the current business model for college athletics is. With coaches at Arkansas already making an average of nearly $280,000, do they really need additional incentive? Isn’t rewarding a coach for postseason or academic achievement essentially paying him twice for the same job?  

Pritchett said one solution for changing the system would be decreasing base salaries and building in “more meaningful” bonuses. Such a system would add more incentive for coaches, who earn six-figure base salaries before they ever accomplish anything.  

“What has to happen to make this all a little more fair, there needs to be some give-back on the base,” Pritchett said. “These incentives should be larger. There are meaningful dollars at stake. The bonuses ought to be meaningful.”  

Arkansas could conceivably buck the national trends, but it could be detrimental to attracting coaches. Long stressed the importance of remaining competitive in the marketplace of coaching talent.  

That holds especially true for the revenue-producing sports. Arkansas football revenue provides 45 percent of the operating budget for the entire athletic department. So the more successful Petrino is, the better the funding for the rest of the sports programs in Fayetteville 

“It is true we don’t have to do it,” Long said. “But to get a high-level, high-profile coach with a track record of success, that’s where you are going to need to be to compete. 

“It is very competitive.”