The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Drugs and Sports

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ROBERT MacNEIL: The pro football season is just around the corner, with players and management confronting a major problem: cocaine.

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MacNEIL: Good evening. As the National Football League begins its second week of pre-season play this weekend, some of the players will be worrying about a different kind of defense: legal defense. The charges: possession and trafficking in cocaine. Cocaine has become a major problem for the league; according to one estimate, up to 40% of NFL players have experimented with the drug, and perhaps 15%, some 225 young men, are problem users. Last month NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle temporarily suspended four players for using cocaine. In addition he fined them amounts equalling 25% of their annual salaries. It was one of the harshest penalties ever handed down by a commissioner of professional sports. The commissioner's action got strong support from many club owners and from the new head of the players' union, but it's also been widely criticized as the wrong approach. Tonight, football's cocaine problem and how to deal with it. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the extent of drug abuse by professional football players was a well-kept family secret until recently, until Don Reese let the public in on it. Reese played for the Miami Dolphins from 1974 to '76, then spent a year in prison for selling cocaine. After prison he played four more seasons with New Orleans and San Diego, then he blew the whistle. In a Sports Illustrated article published last June, Reese charged, "Cocaine can be found in quantity throughout the NFL. It's pushed on players, often from the edge of the practice field. Just as it has controlled me, it now controls and corrupts the game, because so many players are on it." Since Reese went public, at least six NFL teams have been shaken by reports that their players are using drugs. The Cincinnati Bengals have had two of their players admit in court they bought cocaine; they were granted immunity from prosecution in return for testifying. The Houston Oilers have let go two players who were arrested for possession of cocaine; one was convicted, the other is awaiting trial. A star player with the New Orleans Saints has reportedly admitted to a grand jury that he spent $10,000 on cocaine during the 1981 season. A St. Louis Cardinal player has been convicted of cocaine possession and placed on probation; two Washington Redskins were just indicted for conspiring to sell cocaine; and five members of the Dallas Cowboys have been implicated in a federal drug investigation, though none of them has been indicted.

We talk about the problem first, now, with Ed Garvey, who until last month was executive director of the football players' union, the National Football League Players' Association. He had the job for 12 years; he is now a deputy attorney general for the state of Wisconsin. Based on your knowledge, how extensive is the use of cocaine by football players?

ED GARVEY: Well, I think it's a problem in our society, and it's certainly manifested itself in the NFL. I would have to say it is fairly widespread, but it's tough to know until we actually get out there and talk to the players and try to convince them to come forward and admit that they have a problem and seek help for it.

LEHRER: But this has been fairly well known within the family, for some time, hasn't it?

Mr. GARVEY: Yes, it has.

LEHRER: Well, why wasn't the public let in on it? Why wasn't something done about it before recently?

Mr. GARVEY: Well, in part because our concern was that as soon as a club learned that a player had a problem, instead of trying to help the player they would fire the player unless he happened to be a star. We've had a number of cases where the player admits that he's had a cocaine problem, and suddenly he's released, or they say they no longer need him. And so our concern was to try to get help for the player without letting management know, for fear that they wouldn't handle it properly. They've taken kind of the policeman approach to it, rather than trying to be the sympathetic employer.

LEHRER: So the end result was, nothing was done.

Mr. GARVEY: The end result was nothing was done until collective bargaining this past year, where we got management to agree that instead of trying to find out who the users are through spot-check urinalysis, we would train the player reps and coaches and others in detecting the problem, and then offer the player complete confidentiality if he would go to the Hazelton Institute to get assistance.

LEHRER: Explain what the Hazelton Institute is.

Mr. GARVEY: Well, it's an institute that we have selected to help drug abusers or those who are using alcohol to excess, and they are evaluating all the drug programs around the country, to make sure that if a player in San Diego needs help he can go to a program there, and if he wants to go to Minnesota, he can do that.

LEHRER: Mr. Garvey, cocaine is expensive. Someone suggested that it's the high salaries that you and other have negotiated for professional football players that has actually caused this problem. Is that so?

Mr. GARVEY: Well, I think if you look at the drug enforcement problems that are confronting all law enforcement officials today, obviously you look to those who are in a high-income category -- your doctors and lawyers and professional athletes, entertainers. It is expensive, and these people are using it. It it's not just the players; you're talking about people who have money who are using drugs. It's a shame and we ought to do more than we are in society generally, not just in professional athletics.

LEHRER: But as a practical matter, the union hasn't done very much at all about this, right?

Mr. GARVEY: Well, other than trying to get some help, I think we're now on the right track, but the decision of the commissioner recently, I think, has set the program back, because now a player will be very reluctant to come forward and say that I have a problem, for fear that the end result's going to be that he'll be fired.

LEHRER: Well, what's the alternative to that? Should a professional sport like football allow players to continue to play, despite convictions or arrests for what are violations of the law?

Mr. GARVEY: I think we ought to set some goals, first. The first goal should be rehabilitation for those who have a problem; the second area that we should be concerned about, the individual who may think about experimenting -- we want to deter him from doing that. And then we ought to have a fair system for --

LEHRER: Isn't being fired a deterrent?

Mr. GARVEY: It certainly is, but it will deter people from coming forward who do have a problem, obviously, and then it's not going to help them any. I think the criminal justice system ought to take care of people who are disobeying the law; those who are dealing or those who are caught should serve time or pay the penalty, whatever a judge determines.

LEHRER: But when they're literally not in prison, they should be allowed to play football.

Mr. GARVEY: Well, I think they should, and it's just -- I think you have to look at it to some extent the way we look at alcohol. In the past, maybe 10 years ago, an employer would find that he has an employee that's an alcoholic, he'd fire him. Today I think most enlightened employers would try to get help for that individual. And the same thing should be true with drugs. If someone has a dependency problem, you should try to get help for that individual rather than to fire him. Let the law enforcement people take care of enforcing the law; the employer and the union ought to be working to try to convince the individuals to come forward and seek help.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now a management perspective. Jim Finks has been general manager of the Chicago Bears since 1974, and previously managed the Minnesota Vikings. He joins us tonight in Chicago. Mr. Finks, how much of a cocaine problem do you have in the Chicago Bears?

JIM FINKS: It's difficult to tell, Robert. We have not had any of our players go into trading for cocaine. We've had two players go in for -- one for chemicals and one for a combination of -- chemicals, I meant alcohol, but as far as cocaine is concerned, we're not aware of any, but that doesn't mean we don't have any problems.

MacNEIL: How pervasive do you think it is throughout the NFL?

Mr. FINKS: Well, until about a year and a half ago, I thought it was isolated, but the more I read about it and the more I hear about it, why, I think it's pretty widespread. Again, I don't have any facts to back this up, but I remember when Don Reese did come out with the article two years ago, everybody kind of pooh-poohed it, including Ed Garvey and the union. They denied it -- and I might add this, and I don't want to get into a management-union debate -- but Ed kind of said exactly what the League has been saying for three or four years, that we have to set up a program of education, we have to have a rehabilitation program, and we have to be able to confront players if we feel that they have a problem. And then finally, discipline. And this is the program that Pete Rozelle established, in conjunction with the Players' Association, and I think it's a very positive step. But a key to it, I think, is discipline, because if you educate the people properly and those who will come forward and use the rehab program -- those are two steps, but if those two don't work, then I think the commissioner has the obligation to protect the image of the League and the public confidence, and he must do something. I applaud him for what he did this last time, and I'm sure that he will continue to take these actions.

MacNEIL: Mr. Garvey says that will just deter players from coming forward, because they'll fear they'll get fired or get suspended.

Mr. FINKS: Well, I have been taught, and what little I know about chemicals and the addicted people is, in many cases you have to create a crisis to get somebody to do something. You can -- you can soft-pedal it, you can educate them, but in the final analysis, you have to make them realize that either their careers are at stake, their family's at stake, or in many cases their lives are at stake.

MacNEIL: What are you and the Bears actually doing about it -- to find out if you have users, or how many, and so on?

Mr. FINKS: Well, we have educated our coaches and our management staff to the fact that if they detect irregular behavior on players, why, they're not afraid to confront them now. They're not going to determine whether they're addicted or not, but they're going to recommend the kid go in for evaluation.

MacNEIL: And none of them has detected any so far?

Mr. FINKS: Well, we are just getting into this program right now, Robert, and as I say, two of our players went in voluntarily, so I think that's a very positive step.

MacNEIL: What is your explanation for why these athletes use cocaine?

Mr. FINKS: That I don't know. I have no explanation, but we don't limit our program to cocaine; we feel all mood-changing drugs are a problem. And cocaine happens to be the in drug at this point, and it's the most visible one; but we consider alcohol, pep pills, any mood-changing drug a real problem.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Part of the NFL's effort to combat the drug problem is a counseling program in which a former star player is active. He's Carl Eller who played for 15 years, mostly with the Minnesota Vikings, and made all-pro as a lineman five times. What the public did not know during his glory-playing days was that he was a heavy cocaine user. He is also with us tonight from Chicago.Mr. Eller, why did you start using cocaine?

CARL ELLER: Jim, I want to take a chance here and get a little credit that I think that I so rightly deserve, and that is that after my getting the help for my own problem, is that I did go back to the National Football League commissioner, Pete Rozelle, and talk to him about the problems of chemical use within the National Football League. And it was at that time that they began to make some changes about the punitive attitudes they had, and they began to look at the problem in a different aspect. This was also prior to the Don Reese article, and I feel very good about that, because I think that that's where the programs that we have now were initiated. And now you want to ask me a question.

LEHRER: Yeah, just from a personal -- Robin just asked Mr. Finks why do professional football players use cocaine? And my question is, why, what is the answer to that?

Mr. ELLER: Well, simply because a person is playing professional football doesn't mean that his life is A-okay. There could be some problems that could be affecting the player, where he feels that cocaine or any other drug may alleviate them or at least help him deal with them in much better way. And the simple explanation of why anyone uses drugs is basically because they make them feel better.

LEHRER: So there's no --

Mr. ELLER: That was my reason, and of course, the normal reason.

LEHRER: So there's no special thing from your perspective that applies just to football players?

Mr. ELLER: I think there are some uniqueness about the sport. The pressures, being in a public fishbowl, the sudden wealth -- all those things go into making a football player vulnerable. Accessibility to the public, all those things are -- and the combination of them happen to a player at a very young age, where he's not prepared to deal with them.

LEHRER: How did it begin for you. Were you introduced to cocaine by a fellow football player, or was it from the outside world, or what?

Mr. ELLER: It was kind of both. It was a player that I had played with previously, but not at the -- he wasn't a teammate at the present time. He was a friend and it was at a social occasion. It was a very nonthreatening situation.

LEHRER: Did you ever play a game while you were high on cocaine?

Mr. ELLER: I must admit that I did attempt to do that. My experience was that it was not the kind of a drug that you could play under, simply because the effects of it do not last long enough for that type of strenuous activity. And I still contend that most players cannot play under cocaine, simply because the cocaine and the effects of it are not long-lasting.

LEHRER: So the use of cocaine by players, then, is between games -- it's not to get up for a game itself and get through the game, it's to handle the downs between games, is that right?

Mr. ELLER: That's true. Any experienced cocaine user will not choose to use cocaine as a drug for a game.

LEHRER: How could you afford your cocaine habit?

Mr. ELLER: Well, for a while there I could afford it; that was during the days when I was playing football. But when my football-playing days were over, I could no longer afford it, because I didn't have the salary to support my expensive habit. I might add I think that that's some of the problems that the players that are retiring are finding themselves involved in now, that they can now no longer afford their expensive habit that they have had during their playing days.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now the views of another former player who has turned professional writer. He is Peter Gent, who played with the Dallas Cowboys from '64 to '69. After leaving pro football he wrote North Dallas 40, a humorous novel based on his years with the Cowboys, as well as a number of articles on professional football, and he's just finished another novel. Mr. Gent, how serious do you think the cocaine problem is?

PETER GENT: Well, I'll have to agree with most of what I've heard tonight, in the sense that it is a serious problem. Specifically, I think it's a serious problem because I don't think anyone comprehends the danger this drug has. You're right on the edge of big-time crime. You don't buy cocaine from the guy on the corner. It's a very expensive, very sinister drug.

MacNEIL: What are the implications of that for football players?

Mr. GENT: Well, you're dealing -- you're dealing in very high-powered crime. You're putting yourself in a leverage situation where you can get deeply in debt very quickly, you can owe favors to people who are very unsavory --

MacNEIL: You mean, you might be induced to help throw a game, or something like that?

Mr. GENT: Well, you might be induced to do almost anything. You might -- for cocaine, for say, $20 or $30 or $40,000 worth of debt, you may be induced to do anything.

MacNEIL: Are you talking just hypothetically, or do you know of instances?

Mr. GENT: I don't know of any instances, but I would -- my experience in 20 years of being around athletics is everything that you can imagine has happened. I don't think anything that we can -- that we can sit around here and talk about tonight hadn't already happened. We just haven't heard about it yet.

MacNEIL: You heard what the others have said. What's your explanation of why the players get on to it, and why they use it in football?

Mr. GENT: Well, I think first you have to take the official attitude of all clubs, and the sort of what you call the team doctor syndrome. And that is that the team doctor really is the doctor for the team, he's not the doctor for the player. As a result the player doesn't trust the doctor, the player must doctor himself to a certain extent. The definition of injury is one that hurts the team. Pain is just when it hurts you. If the pain keeps you out of the game, and you being out of the game causes the team to lose the game, that's injury. As a result there's that kind of pressure, there's that kind of pressure to use what you'd call legitimate drugs -- novocaine, codeine, narcotics --

MacNEIL: Which the teams use.

Mr. GENT: Which the teams use all the time. They will, may deny -- we may hear denials tonight that players are injected, that players use drugs. I doubt that it's changed much in the years I've been out, but --

MacNEIL: Are you saying that the medical use of drugs predisposes the players to seek other drugs, or to hide pain, or what?

Mr. GENT: Absolutely. I think the medical use of drugs -- it's a drug technology. I mean, you can turn to a commercial television station and watch them tell you to take Contac and be a man and go to work. Ignore the sickness, ignore the pain, ignore the body's warning signals that there's something wrong with you.

MacNEIL: What kind of players use it, mostly, to your knowledge? Is it the star players we all know about, or the guys who sit on the bench?

Mr. GENT: I don't -- I think there may be a personality profile, I'm not certain. I think what Carl said about the down side -- I think it's very important for a player to -- every player lives in fear of that down side, but it's very important for a player to come down. He builds himself to the peak of performing as an artist, as a great athlete, but he must have that very painful down side of coming down from the game, and cocaine has now offered them sort of a simple solution, a technological, chemical solution to the down side. And I think the implications of that are quite precarious.

MacNEIL: What do you think of Commissioner Rozelle's action?

Mr. GENT: Much like the French Army in World War I, when they would randomly execute guys and then tell them that's because the whole army was cowards. I don't believe that the commissioner can do that. I don't believe the commissioner has enough information -- and I believe that Commissioner Rozelle is trying his hardest, I'm not sitting here, laughing at the commissioner, nor am I saying that these people are purposely hiding this. I'm speaking from the standpoint that I don't think they know what kind of a problem they've got. I believe they're really speaking from ignorance, and are looking at real danger and don't know it.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Finks, is that right?

Mr. FINKS: Is what right, Jim?

LEHRER: Is that you and the management folks who are running the National Football League have got a real problem that you don't even know how serious it is as we sit here tonight? Is Pete Gent right?

Mr. FINKS: Well, I -- Pete must have some facts that I don't have, and he very well could have. I think everyone of us would admit that we have a problem; how widespread it is, why, Pete Gent's guess would be as good as mine. The only thing I can tell you is that our league is taking some very positive steps, and I think a key, and for the first time, is we're having support from the Players' Association, who by Pete's own admission a team doctor would imply enemy. I think that's a very unfair statement, Pete, to all the very fine men who are performing those duties, but now players have an opportunity to go to a neutral doctor if they have a problem.

LEHRER: But what about Mr. Gent's basic point there, about the team doctors, which is that there is a drug atmosphere already that exists in professional football, and the movement from taking a shot for a shoulder injury to cocaine isn't that big a deal?

Mr. FINKS: Well, I think at one time that might have been a fact -- maybe in Dallas where Pete played. But Pete, I'm happy to report to you, several years ago now, there is a security check on all prescription drugs that clubs had within their locker room and the doctors, and they must account for that on a 30-day basis.

LEHRER: Is that what you were referring to, Mr. Gent?

Mr. GENT: Well, yes, I mean, I'm referring to that, but I'm -- I don't think that makes any difference. I mean, you can check it if you want, but the point still is you're ignoring the body. The body's saying I'm injured, I'm hurt -- Chicago is a perfect example. Dick Butkus went to a neutral doctor and had to sue to get his contract. Dick Butkus was one of the greatest football players of all time; he has no knee. He didn't practice for two years. They told him his knee was okay, the team doctor told him his knee was okay. He went to a physician on his own. The physician told him he had no knee at all. My point is not that the drugs are being abused in the locker room, the point is that you have drugs in the locker room, and you're using them to short-circuit the body's own systems. You want a solution? Put a hundred men on the roster. Then when a guy's injured, you got somebody else to replace him.

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LEHRER: Is Pete Gent right? Excuse me, Mr. Finks, let me ask Ed Garvey about this. What is your view of the drugs in the locker room idea?

Mr. GARVEY: Well, certainly when I first got involved with the union back in the early '70s, they were handing out amphetamines all the time to the players, and then the League was sued a couple of times and they stopped that. But we've had players who come before the Retirement Board who are hooked on Percodan and other drugs that were prescribed to them by the team doctors to get them through an injury. And I think that just as the drug problem is too important to simply be left to those who are concerned about image, I think someone ought to be evaluating the overall program of the NFL and the handling of injuries and the prescription of drugs, to protect the player. Because I think it is widespread and it does, as Pete suggest, create the atmosphere.

LEHRER: Let me ask Carl Eller about that. Was there any connection between your first use of cocaine and the fact that drugs had been used in your presence or maybe even on you, when you had injuries, et cetera?

Mr. ELLER: I am not sure whether there is or not. The one thing I do know, that football is a business, and no matter which side you take, all businesses are to be operated at a profit. When you talk about the individual I think you've got to have someone that's responsible for himself, and no one forces these people to take drugs, and I think that's what the ball players ultimately have to learn, is they have to become responsible to themselves and make those decisions for themselves, whether it's their careers or their lives or whatever. You know, it's that they can decide whether they want to submit to the doctor's prescription or not.

LEHRER: I see. Mr. Finks, what about the enforcement question, Pete Gent's analogy with the French Army? How do you respond to that?

Mr. FINKS: Well, you know, I think you know how I respond to that, Jim. I feel that if we do a proper job in education, which I don't think we have yet, I think we've made great strides but we haven't educated our people well enough yet. Number two, get them involved in their employees' assistance program -- it's not a punitive step. If they have a problem, step forward and we will take care of them at no loss of salary. But finally, and I think the key is, and the Players' Association, the group that Ed just resigned from about a month ago, have totally endorsed our commissioner's right and obligation to police this league and take whatever steps he feels necessary to preserve the prestige and the public confidence in this industry that we have. That we all benefit by having it prosper the way it has.

LEHRER: Let me ask Pete Gent the question, if a professional football player, rightly or wrongly, is arrested for violation of a law, which possession or selling of cocaine is, are you -- is it your position that the National Football League should take no action against that player and let him play?

Mr. GENT: No, that's not my position at all. My position is that we have a guy in Carl who is now talking about businesses working at a profit when he himself admits that during the years he played he used cocaine freely. Well, it's easy to say that now, but what I'm going to tell you about young ball players is, the first thing is, they don't think they're going to get old. The second thing about criminal is, they don't think they're going to get caught. So an educational program that's based on one, you're going to grow old, and two, you're going to get caught, generally fails with young ball players, generally fails with people who break the law, and generally fails with guys -- as Ed will probably tell you, the hardest thing to get ball players interested in is their retirement, because they don't think they're ever going to retire.

LEHRER: Is that right?

Mr. GARVEY: Well, that's right, but let me also if I could, to just comment, because I think Jim Finks kind of sums up the problem. He constantly and the commissioner talk about this as an image problem, and that's what the commissioner is hired to do, is to protect the image of the game.

LEHRER: You're not suggesting that this is not giving professional football a bad image, are you?

Mr. GARVEY: It is giving professional football a bad image, but in handing out the suspensions the way he has, without any regard for the differing circumstances, he's responding to an image problem, rather than trying to accomplish the goals that we've set out in collective bargaining, and that is education and rehabilitation. So this is really one of the difficulties, that they keep talking about image, we keep talking about how you solve the problem.

LEHRER: We've got to go. Robin?

MacNEIL: Mr. Finks, Mr. Eller in Chicago, thank you for joining us. Mr. Garvey in Washington, Mr. Gent in New York. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We'll be back on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.