Banning High Will Offer Athletes Drug Testing

As concerns about drug abuse intensified after the recent cocaine-induced deaths of two noted young athletes, school officials and coaches of Banning High in Wilmington went public Wednesday with a new program--drug testing for all Banning athletes, boys and girls, on a voluntary basis.

It is the first Los Angeles Unified school--and one of only a few in the nation--to initiate such a program. It will begin in September.

“It is our contention that a drug (testing) program will help at this high school because it gives players a chance to say no,” said Chris Ferragamo, Banning football coach for 23 years.

‘A Good Start’

“I really believe our kids are clean now. They’re getting cleaner every year, and we’re going to keep it clean here. But it’s tough. The worst thing in high school is peer pressure. In high school, it’s very difficult to say no to your peers. I think it (the drug-testing program) is a good start.”

The voluntary drug-testing program will begin with Banning’s varsity football team members, last year’s city champions, who will be asked, with their parents’ approval, to sign up for the testing plan, a urine screening test for alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, PCP and other drugs. Members of the junior varsity and Bee football teams also will be asked to participate--in all, about 200 football players at the school, a traditional powerhouse in city school sports.

Including all sports, about 500 Banning athletes will be able to sign up for testing if they wish. Results of the tests will be kept confidential between medical officials and those tested and their parents, so that eligibility to participate in sports will not be a factor, school officials said. One effect of the program will be to initiate therapy privately, if a need is indicated.

Working out at a weight-training session Tuesday night, the varsity football players said they were 100% behind the new program.

“As a group, we all decided we would join the program,” senior defensive tackle Terrance Powe said. “Yes, there are drugs on this campus. They’re everywhere. You’ve just got to learn to stay away from those guys who use, or if you have a friend who does, you try to get him some help. I talked to my mother and she said it (the program) was a good idea. Look at (Len) Bias and (Don) Rogers (the athletes who died recently from cocaine use). They were foolish. Foolish.”

Pat Cragin, Banning’s assistant principal who put together the new program after a year of research, designed it on a lottery-type basis, with the names of five athletes who have volunteered for testing to be drawn each week by a school official.

The students whose names have been drawn will give urine samples at the assistant principal’s office. The samples will then be taken to San Pedro Peninsula Hospital by a school official. The hospital has agreed to underwrite the cost of the testing, as well as providing a free consultation and an educational program for students and faculty as part of its community service program. Hospital officials also are working out special rates for students who need continued counseling or inpatient or outpatient therapy.

Preventive Program

“From the point the samples go to the hospital, we will never know if the diagnosis is positive or negative,” Banning principal Estela Pena said. “That will be between the doctor and the student and parents. This is a program to be preventive and informative, not punitive. The school won’t be informed and the test results won’t be in a student’s record because the hospital will have them. It will not jeopardize his or her eligibility in a sport.”

Cragin and Pena said that testing forms, to be signed by both student and parents or guardians, will be sent home with the students in September with a cover letter explaining what the program is all about. Before school was out in June, though, Cragin talked with the students about the plan, and also presented it to the school’s Booster Club.

“The kids were all for it and when I took it to the Booster Club, they said they would do anything to help,” Cragin said. “We think Banning has the best athletic program around and we feel adding a voluntary drug program will improve it. It is our responsibility to students and parents. We haven’t had any (drug) problems on the teams and we don’t want any. We feel it will give the students the opportunity to say no to drugs because they might be tested on Monday. We also thought it would keep the drug pushers away from our teams. We’re looking at 100% participation and nothing less.

Three Questions Asked

“We entertain a lot of college coaches through here every year and for the last two or three years, they ask three questions,” he continued. “One, how is the athlete’s attitude, two, how are his grades. And the third one is ‘any drug problem.’ ”

“This is a hard-working, conservative community and the parents have supported their children with very strong family groups,” Pena said. “This community is very into the sports world and likes to follow our athletics. And they’re supportive of this (program).”

Pena said that the school is made up ethnically of about 50% Latino students, 30% black, 10% Asian, 10% Caucasian.

“This is a very involved school, a prideful school,” she said, explaining that she hoped eventually to include drill and flag teams and student leaders in the voluntary drug-testing plan.

Cragin, assistant principal for 10 years, said that the athletes’ names will be added as the different sports begin their respective seasons, first football, then girls’ volleyball, then basketball in October. Their names will remain in the voluntary testing lottery all year. “So a football player could be tested in May, not just during the season,” he explained.

Students or parents can decide at any time to get out of the program, Cragin said, “but if they do, we would have a conference with them.”

The Banning program has been approved by Los Angeles Unified School District officials and its legal advisers.

Cragin explained that he modeled the Banning program after a similar one at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, which has been in operation for a year. High schools in Fontana and Colton, he said, are also starting voluntary drug-testing programs this fall.

However, Cragin won’t be able to oversee the program he started because he is leaving Banning to become principal at Fleming Junior High in Lomita. But he plans to keep tabs on the program’s progress.

Sought Hospital’s Help

“We’ve been playing Edison for years and we talked a lot with Bill Workman, who put theirs together. He’s gone to a college now. Edison charges their kids $20 for the test and they have a choice of two hospitals. We didn’t want to do that, so we started looking for a hospital that would help us.” Cragin contacted John Greenwood, who is director of development and fund raising at San Pedro Peninsula Hospital, and also a member of the school board who represents schools in the harbor area.

“I see it as an experimental program,” Greenwood said. “It makes an awful lot of sense. The school district is not in the business of identifying people on drugs and turning them in. We’re in the business of educating youngsters. But at the same we can’t ignore the drug problem. This proposal has the best of both worlds. It is not any of the Pete Rozelle image. It’s voluntary, not mandatory, and it goes from hospital to parents.

“The hospital also is going to do some educational programs for athletes and faculty on alcohol and drug usage,” Greenwood added. “It’s a pilot program and at the end of the year, we’ll sit down and evaluate it and talk with some of the other schools. I like these things when they are initiated by local people voluntarily, rather than school-board enforced. There are youngsters out there who need help, and hopefully this is a way to prevent problems before they start, rather than trying to prevent problems later on.”

‘Positive in Nature’

Dan Issacs, superintendent in charge of the senior high school division of Los Angeles Unified schools, characterized the program as “very preliminary, but it would seem to be positive in nature. It’s a small step forward.”

Principal at Banning since 1982, Pena said that the school has had previous arrests for drugs, but not in large numbers considering the size of the student body, about 3,000.

“But we have noticed a difference in the types (of drugs) being used,” Pena said. “Before, it was a grass problem or some PCP. But within the last year, it’s been cocaine. We had a student arrested for cocaine, and it’s now to the point where the students are talking about it.”

On Tuesday night, Banning’s football players and their coaches were talking, too, about drugs and about the upcoming testing program.

“I think it’s something that’s really going to be good,” said Jim True, an assistant football coach who is also in charge of the players’ weight-training program. “It’s too bad it couldn’t have started years ago. And start younger. We’ve got to get it in before high school. The kids are all talking about Len Bias and Don Rogers and what happened to them. They think it’s a shame. Both were so young and just starting their lives.

“When they start that drug stuff, they not only do damage to themselves, but to their loved ones and friends. If the kids see people they idolize doing it, what’s going to stop them in junior high or high school? And who do these young kids idolize--pro athletes. Basketball, baseball and football players. We need educational programs, as well as testing. Start them there in the elementary grades.”

Fallen Prey to Drugs

“We’ve lost some players who have gone to college and fallen prey to the drug scene,” Coach Ferragamo said. “That’s the reason I feel something has to be done before high school. But we can start with this program. You can’t force the kids to do it, it’s got to be voluntary. But if they want to attend Banning, we want them clean. They can go elsewhere and not be tested. We want to set a good example here, to show people that Banning High School does lead the pack in athletics and against the drug scene.

“It’s a decay in our society, this drug scene,” Ferragamo added. “If we can save one kid with this program, then it’s worth everything.”

“I think it will help keep kids off drugs,” junior linebacker Andy Merida said of the new testing program. “The kids on the teams are not on drugs because they’re dedicated to sports. If they go to weekend parties, they might drink a beer or two. Mostly not. I was real upset about Bias and Rogers. I was disappointed that their careers were wasted in one night. It’s a lesson to show us not to do it. I think we can learn a lesson from what happened to them.”

Banning graduate Courtney Hall, who now is a linebacker for Rice University in Houston, had come to work out with weights this evening. He said that Rice is starting a drug-testing program for its athletic teams in the fall, testing men and women for steroids and narcotics.

“I’m for it,” Hall said. “People shouldn’t be using drugs in the first place. They only hinder your performance. The two deaths (Bias and Rogers) shocked me. I hadn’t heard about people dying from cocaine. That probably opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

Banning quarterback Eddie Kapu said: “Hopefully this (testing program) will help, because the drugs are all over. It’s a good idea to stop it here before the kids go on to college or to pro athletics.”

Most of the players said that they felt the football team members did not use drugs, but that there were drugs being used on campus, as well as off.

“This is the ‘80s,” senior fullback Malili Fuamatu Jr. said. “This is what’s going on. Drugs, violence. . . . “

“You can have a great time without drugs or alcohol,” said Danny Gunderson, a senior who was all-league center last season. “You don’t need that stuff to have fun. You can go to the beach, or bowling or to the movies. We’re all pretty close and that’s what we do.”