Waterloo player first to be caught for HGH

A Canadian university football player who became the first North American university athlete to test positive for the occurrence of human growth hormone has been given a stiff penalty by the body that oversees doping control and testing of university athletes.

First-year running back Matt Socholotiuk, who also tested positive for testosterone, has been handed a three-year ban from the game, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) announced on 8 September. Three of his team-mates, who all played for the University of Waterloo, have also been given sanctions, of one, two and four-year bans.

This is the latest event in what has become the biggest scandal to hit the Ontario comprehensive university, best known for its close association with its most famous alumnus, the CEO of the company that manufactures the BlackBerry, Jim Balsillie.

Earlier this summer, the university took the unprecedented step of cancelling the entire Waterloo Warriors season after police charged a former and a current player of the squad with drug offences and test results revealed nine anti-doping violations.

Then, in July, the CCES had announced the nine positive results after testing 62 players in late March.

And in August, the university released a report that investigated the incident.

However, it has been the suspension of the season by the university administration that has been a sore point for many associated with the team. Several members had asked that the university wait for the results of the commissioned investigation before implementing sanctions. But the university, faced with the pressure to act decisively, made the decision to suspend the whole team.

Since then 18 players, as well as assistant coach Carl Zender, have transferred to other university football teams.

The university says it had no choice but to act as it did.

“We had a tremendously tough decision to make for the health and wellbeing of our young people, as well as the greater good of the programme, and the university, and we hope in the end that will be understood,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, Waterloo’s Vice-president (academic).

Many players have complained that drug testing was very limited at other universities. Only six athletes at nearby Guelph and McMaster were asked to supply a urine sample, while no players at two other universities in the area, Western Ontario and Laurier, were asked to submit samples.

The report, which was released on 18 August, was the result of interviews with several players and coaches. It revealed that allegations of drug use came up in 2009 by a player who had approached two members of the coaching staff. Those coaches did approach the player who denied the allegations. Since the player had tested negative the year before, the matter was dropped.

The report’s authors say users maintain a code of secrecy and that, as a result, there was no evidence that coaches were aware of the use of banned substances, which they say was known to only a few players. The fact that the report found no widespread knowledge of drug use made many feel justified in their earlier conclusion that the suspension of the entire team was overkill.

“It’s what we said all along. Yet everybody still got penalised,” said Zender, the former assistant coach who resigned over the matter, in an interview with the Waterloo Record.

The report recommends better drug screening and an improved policy for handling suspicions. The university has responded by setting up a substance abuse education programme, while the team will be playing in a series of inter-university scrimmages with surplus players.

The university says it wants to get the issues “out of the shadows of the dressing room and demonstrate the risks involved in using banned substances”.

Canadian Interuniversity Sport, which oversees most of Canada’s university sports, recently announced it would triple the number of drug tests on football players.

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