CHICAGO - The Big Ten will test a portion of its student-athletes for performance-enhancing drugs for the first time during the coming school year, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told reporters at the conference's preseason media gathering yesterday.
Athletic directors, presidents, doctors and trainers from member universities were unanimously in favor of the new program, Delany said.
Only about 10 percent of the Big Ten's 8,500 student-athletes will face testing, Delany said.
The National Center For Drug Free Sport, an organization based in Kansas City, Mo., will administer the tests. Delany said it's likely that they'll test a higher concentration of athletes in sports where there might be a higher possibility of abuse.
The tests will only aim to detect performance-enhancing drugs, Delany said, not recreational drugs like alcohol or marijuana.
He added that first-time offenders would face a one-year suspension from their sport.
"It's not an educational wake-up call," Delany said. "It's a loss of eligibility for a year."
Under the new policy, athletes at Big Ten institutions will now have to face the possibility of drug testing from three sources -- the conference, the NCAA and their own universities.
With all the negative press recently surrounding performance-enhancing drugs, the extra step is a good thing, said senior wide receiver Terrell Golden.
"Whatever it takes to keep the game pure," Golden said. "That's fine with me."
Senior linebacker Dan Connor also welcomed the additional monitoring, but said it wouldn't be an issue for his team.
"Speaking as a Penn State player, no one does anything, so it's not gonna affect us that much," Connor said.
The amount of money the conference will pay for this service was unavailable from conference officials.
