Still no oversight on painkillers

Since talking to The Post and Courier about prescription drug abuse and painkiller injections given to college football players, Marcus Amos has been asked by Sports Illustrated and ESPN's "Outside the Lines" to elaborate for upcoming stories on the same subjects.

The highest ranking officials at the NCAA and in the nation's major athletic conferences also are aware of the three-day series on painkillers that ran in newspapers across South Carolina.

But the people presiding over the health and safety of college football players still do not monitor the use of painkillers among athletes at member institutions.

There was no oversight in October and there is no oversight of Alabama and Texas going into tonight's BCS championship game in Pasadena, Calif.

As outlined in the series, University of South Carolina doctors administered a total of 169 injections of the painkiller Toradol to football players on game days during the 2008 season, according to records obtained by The Post and

Courier. Clemson gave 92 Toradol injections on game days during the 2008 season.

The NCAA was unaware of both figures until the newspaper report, and does not ask any school for information regarding prescription painkiller distribution.

The ruling body of college athletics is not considering any change in its policy, which actually is no policy at all. All that exists are guidelines in the NCAA's Sports Medicine Handbook.

"These guidelines do not prescribe treatment or care, but provide assistance to sports medicine personnel as they care for student-athletes at the local level," said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's Associate Director of Health and Safety, responding to a question via e-mail. "The guidelines are reviewed periodically by the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports; the next meeting of that committee is June 2010, at which time guidelines will be updated as necessary."

The National Football League annually surveys the doctors and trainers of all 32 teams to gather information on painkiller use.

Wilfert noted that the NCAA-member schools themselves are in charge of managing painkiller policy for athletes.

"As noted in the preface of the handbook, these guidelines are not intended to supersede the exercise of medical judgment in specific situations by a member institution's sports medicine staff," Wilfert said. "In all instances, determination of the appropriate care and treatment of student-athletes must be based on the clinical judgment of the institution's team physician or athletic health care teams that is consistent with sound principles of sports medicine care."

Individual conferences have jurisdiction on some health and safety issues, too, but also choose to look the other way.

"We consider that an institutional matter," an Atlantic Coast Conference official said.

The Southeastern Conference is unlikely to get involved, an SEC official said.

Amos, an Augusta-based drug rehabilitation counselor, is among 155 people or organizations to have received funds from the NCAA's Health and Safety Speakers Grant. He is the only one on the list specializing in the dangers of prescription painkiller abuse, which he says is rampant. But Amos said he rarely is contacted by university athletic department managers apparently afraid of finger-pointing.

"I'm still pushing the effort," Amos said.

Reach Gene Sapakoff at gsapakoff@postandcourier.com or (843) 937-5593.