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"As a gay student, it can be intimidat-
ing, being predominantly surrounded by
straight men. I guess having a co-ed envi-
ronment can be comforting," Wright said.
But LSA and Music senior Andy
Papas, who said his freshman room-
mate was OK with his sexuality, but that
the two had a "conflict of personalities,"
still said he would not want to live with
a girl or in a hall of only gay students.
"That's not a college experience to
me. That's what you do the last years of
college," Papas said. "A co-ed (dorm)
room? I just don't think that would
work. I would feel weird living in the
same room as Caitlyn," he added, refer-
ring to his best girl friend.
Not over here
on't expect any of these
programs to come to the
University anytime soon.
Levy said the Univer-
sity has stayed away from
"identity houses" because
of issues of segregation
- partially for legal reasons, but mostly
because "having a roommate that may be
different from you is the philosophy."
Other schools, like the University of
Texas and Ball State University, have cre-
ated more sophisticated roommate selec-
tion services, where students can list their
preferences, likes and dislikes and find the
perfect match.
For philosophical and logistical rea-
sons the University will not do that, either.
There is little evidence to suggest that
roommate tailoring actually works - the
University of New Hampshire reportedly
tried it and eventually discontinued it,
claiming it still received the same number
of complaints.
Instead, the University prides itself
on a dense bureaucracy of support: resi-
dent advisors, minority peer advisors,
hall directors, CAPS, LGBT Affairs and
OSCR to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender feel safe and welcome.
Resident advisors do receive some
training and exposure to LGBT issues,
mostly involving role-playing and discus-
sion in a mandatory training course.
But in the past, students and adminis-
trators have pushed for more recognition
of gay and lesbians students.
Jim Toy, who for 23 years co-ran the
LGBT office from its start in 1971, had
attempted during his tenure to get a resi-
dent advisor, similar to a minority peer
advisor, for gay and lesbian students. He
also tried for gay-focused housing. He
was denied on both demands.
"The argument against that was that
women and men didn't share rooms, so
why should gay men and lesbians have that
opportunity," said Toy, who now works a
diversity coordinator for the University's
Office of Institutional Equity. "We said,
'That's not the point; it's for safety and a
supportive environment."'
But by and large, Toy said, Univer-
sity Housing has been very responsive to
gay issues, more sensitive than any other
University department. This is, in part,
because with so many students living in
the residence halls, more is demanded of
housing.
more complex.
"Now of course there are concern
about transgender, which there weren
then," Toy said.
Gender identity and expressio
issues have been a sore spot for Un
versity administrators for the pa
couple of years. Almost all agree th
changes need to be made to accor
modate the students, but few kno
exactly what to do.
"We've talked about it a lot," Jeanii
Bessette, an interim co-director of res
dence education. "Right now, how v
deal with trangendered students is ca
by case."
So far, administrators acknowledg
that most residence halls have unise
bathrooms, though sometimes the
bathrooms do not have a shower. All ne
and renovated buildings and resident
halls have gender-neutral restroorr
Some of the biggest problems for accor
modating transgender students invol
Gender
frontier
identity: the last
imes have changed since
Toy started running the
LGBT office more than
30 years ago. The campus
has become more accept-
ing of gays, and the gay
community has grown
CAITLIN KLEIBOER/Daily
The NCAA spends $4 million each year to test its athletes for drug use. At championship events, the NCAA tests for all of its banned substances, which include
stimulants and anabolic steroids.
Muscle Bustin'
The NCAA tests athletes year-round
for steroids. Does its effort pay off?
By Jack Herman | Daily Sports Writer
inutes after the members of the Michigan men's dis-
tance medley relay team came off the track with a
second-place finish in the NCAA indoor champion-
ships last March, they were each asked to urinate into a cup
with someone else watching.
This may seem intrusive, but it is standard operating pro-
cedure at any NCAA championship event. It also happens
hundreds of times a year at every Division I campus.
In fact, it's just a small part of the NCAA's $4 million pro-
gram to test athletes for drug use each year. The policy has
earned the highest praise from students and administrators.
And, at a time when Congress has scrutinized the actions of
Major League Baseball and its players, politicians have looked
to the NCAA as the example of an effective program.
But very few people outside the NCAA know the orga-
nization actually performs drug testing, and if they do, it's
unlikely they know how it works. Despite the high esteem
in which the NCAA policy is held, there are numerous prob-
lems - some that can be fixed and some that can't - that
it must deal with in the future.
How it works
The NCAA sponsors two types of drug testing through-
out the year. The first, which the members of the track team
experienced, occurs at championship events for every sport.
The second, which has gradually expanded since its incep-
tion, is the year-round drug-testing program. It started in
1990 with just football, before track and field was included
in 1992. Since August 2004, all sports have been subject to
the NCAA's campus-based program.
The championship drug-testing policy varies by sport. In
team events, the NCAA can test a group of random play-
ers at any point during the tournament. In individual sports,
the NCAA tests a predetermined number of athletes in each
event, usually the winner and another random athlete.
The year-round testing is much more structured. The
National Center for Drug Free Sport, the company that
runs the program for the NCAA, visits every Division I-
A school once during the year to test 18 football players
and eight athletes from another sport. For other divisions,
those numbers vary.
Drug Free Sport has a team of 50 crew chiefs, some employ-
ees but mostly contractors, who it sends to run the program at
each campus. The crew chief notifies the athletic department
no sooner than 48 hours before he and his team of two to three
other workers will arrive. He also tells the school which sport,
besides football, Drug Free Sport has decided to test.
"Sort of planning out the whole year, we also want to
make sure we have a good cross-section of all sports and
test athletes who show they have more likelihood of using
banned substances," said Andrea Wickerham, a former
assistant field hockey coach at Michigan who now runs the
NCAA testing program for Drug Free Sport.
. Drug Free Sport then randomly chooses the athletes, who
are told by the school that they are expected to arrive at the
drug-testing site by around 6:30 a.m. that day.
The substances the NCAA looks for also differ depend-
ing on which type of testing is going on. At championship
events, the NCAA includes all of its banned substances
in the testing. This includes stimulants (cocaine, ephed-
rine, methamphetamines, etc.), anabolic steroids, diuretics
(which increase the flow of urine from the body), street
drugs and peptide hormones and analogues, like human
growth hormone. During the year-round process, the
NCAA does not test for any street drugs or stimulants,
with the exception of ephedrine.
But in terms of the actual testing, the processes are
extremely similar. A tester escorts the athlete to the bath-
room to ensure there is no manipulation of the urine sample.
Once the cup is filled to the specified volume, a crew mem-
ber checks to make sure the urine has the right pH balance
and is not diluted to the point that no meaningful testing
results will be recorded at the laboratory. If the sample does
not pass the preliminary test, the athlete is required to stay
until he deposits one that can.
If a sample is acceptable, it is readied for packaging. It
is split between two vials, labeled "A" and "B." The tester
attaches a bar code to each, so that nothing on the package
will identify either the athlete or his school, then prepares
the vials for shipment. Then, the athlete signs a computer-
ized record that states the tester acted in accordance with
NCAA protocol.
The samples are shipped to the UCLA Olympic Laboratory,
the only site in the entire United States accredited to do steroid
testing by the World Anti-Doping Association. First, the "A"
sample is run through the testing process. If the results are neg-
ative, the tests end. If positive, the remainder of the "A" sample
goes into a more complex machine for additional testing.
The results are sent back to Wickerham, who decodes
them by bar code and reports to the school. If after the sec-
ond test an athlete still tests positive, Wickerham asks him
to authorize the unsealing of the "B" sample. With his per-
mission, the sample is opened, and the tests are performed
again by someone uninvolved in the original testing. This
extended process ensures the quality of the testing.
"The thought of a false positive is ludicrous," said Don Cat-
lin, who is the director of the laboratory, which also conducts
steroid testing for the NFL. "People always say, 'How can
you do that,' well we can, we've been doing it for 25 years.
The minute we have a false positive, we're out of business.
"It's people in the general laboratory work fields, clini-
cal chemists, who promote these kind of silly questions,
they simply don't understand what we do. This is not like
a doctor sending a blood or urine to the lab, where they do
have mistakes. Nothing like that happens at all, apples and
oranges. The amount of work that goes into a positive sam-
ple in this lab is huge."
See STEROIDS, Page 12B
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',
4B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 20, 2005
L1
The Michigan D