Thanks for the comments here and elsewhere.

I just threw away my copy of the NCAA’s drug testing program, and I wish I hadn’t. As the article points out, all athletes are tested at the championship level. I am certain that D1 athletes are subject to random drug testing during other times of the season. I don’t know if this applies to DIII athletes.

While I wholeheartedly agree this is “performance for media”, the reason I point out the random testing above is this: if athlets are subject to random drug testing by the ncaa, it is hard for me to believe futher tests (by the school) are illegal. I also agree that the broader issue of whether a drug test can be required by the ncaa (or as a condition of employment) is interesting and we could certainly question (and should) its civil rights status.

I “have a friend” who has been tested both as an athlete, and recently as an application for employment. In both cases, my friend knew 24 hours in advance that they would be tested (I don’t believe the employer is testing for steroids!). The reaction to the test was given by the employer is that it was administered much more strictly – “nervewracking” compared to the NCAA testing, having actual controls in place for the employment test.

One could wonder how the UW-Stout test will be administered, and if the details will be part of the “performance”. Doubtful.

Be all this as it may, lest my students miss the simpler point I was hoping to make, and which you quite correctly pointed out, is that even when creating something as nebulous and “media performance”, firms (or universities) will respond to the prices of inputs.

While we could argue about how valuable the steroids tests are for this “peformance” (relative to the value of the street drug tests), the fact that a steroid test is 3-4 times more expensive than a street drug test is part of the story.

Why hundreds & thousands? Because the proposed testing is to be up scaled in Autumn to include all student athletes at University of Wisconsin – Stout.

The whole thing reads as a “performance for media” by the UW, as student athletes had already been part of a testing program.

Steve W

And whether legally that testing can be expanded from Illegal Recreational Drug Testing by testing for Disallowed/Illegal Performance Enhancing Drugs among the whole athlete group?

This DA should be taken to task by the faculty and by the student’s themselves. It is a shame that the School has caved to pressure to do ANY testing as part of a “fishing expedition.”

The school could be seen as in violation of their athletes’ rights by testing without cause.

A DA does not gain license for “fishing expeditions” for infraction “B” among a DA determined target group simply by having a small subset of the target group implicated for infraction “A”.

An interesting case, which as summarized smacks of civil right violations right & left.

For what it is worth a standard Illegal Drug urine test is quite cheap, whereas the steroid testing is complex lab work, and much more expensive per tested individual.

Steve W