BALCO Scandal
Encyclopedia
The BALCO scandal is a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative
was a San Francisco Bay Area
business accused of supplying steroids to Major League Baseball
players. The incident surrounds a 2002 US Federal government investigation of the laboratory.
and his first wife Aubry, BALCO began as Millbrae Holistic, a vitamin shop in Millbrae, California
. Initially a business venture to keep food on the table, only one year after opening, Victor Conte closed Millbrae Holistic and started BALCO as a sport supplement company in neighboring Burlingame
. Investing in an ICP spectrometer, Conte used his knowledge of nutrition, largely self taught, to devise a system of testing athletes for mineral deficiencies in order to maintain a perfect balance of minerals in the body. Through regular urine and blood testing, Conte would monitor and treat mineral shortages in athletes, supposedly elevating their level of physical wellness dramatically. Surviving his divorce from Aubry and several years of financial hardships, BALCO did not achieve professional success until the summer of 1996 with the addition of NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski to its client list. From there Conte began acquiring additional high-profile athletes with his special concoction of undetectable drugs, manufactured by rogue Illinois chemist Patrick Arnold
and distributed by personal trainer Greg Anderson
.
, Human Growth Hormone, Modafinil
, Testosterone cream
, and Tetrahydrogestrinone
. Erythropoietin or EPO is a hormone naturally produced by the body that improves the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen. Originally used to treat anemia, when artificially introduced to the body EPO allows the red blood cells to carry greater amounts of oxygen, enabling the muscles to work longer and recover more quickly than normal. Human Growth Hormone or HGH is a hormone used to treat children diagnosed as pituitary dwarves. In theory this hormone builds muscle mass although some studies suggest it has no effect on building muscle mass to a degree that would benefit athletes. Modafinil is a mild stimulant designed to be taken right before competition in order to sharpen an athlete’s senses and performance. Legally marketed as a treatment for narcolepsy and sleep disorders, Modafinil is not regarded as a high risk drug by athletic governing bodies, but is still banned from competition. Testosterone Cream or "The Cream" is a salve that when rubbed on the body introduces testosterone, trimming body fat and building muscle. Though less effective than testosterone injections, "The Cream" was widely used because it didn’t cause a significant rise in normal testosterone levels when scrutinized by a drug test. Tetrahydrogestrinone, THG, or "The Clear," is a designer anabolic steroid that affects the user like other anabolic steroids, making muscles bigger and stronger. THG was the main steroid distributed by BALCO, with the others products more of a regimen to heighten its effects according to an individual athletes body.
, sprint coach to Marion Jones
and Tim Montgomery
.
The syringe went to Don Catlin
, MD, the founder and then-director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, who hd developed a testing process for the substance, tetrahydrogestrinone
(THG).
Later that year, the Chicago Tribune named Catlin Sportsman of the Year.
He tested 550 existing samples from athletes, of which 20 proved to be positive for THG.
Athletes including Kelli White
, British sprinter Dwain Chambers
, shot putter Kevin Toth
, middle distance runner Regina Jacobs
, and hammer throwers John McEwen
and Melissa Price were subsequently incriminated in the investigation.
MVP and current player for the Colorado Rockies
allegedly admitted to steroid use as well as HGH use in front of a grand jury in December 2003. Jason Giambi
first became connected with BALCO after inquiring with Greg Anderson about Barry Bonds' training regimen. The much publicized leak of court documents which were said to contain this admission led to a tarnishing of Giambi's career, yet because he never actually failed a drug test, Giambi has, thus far, avoided punishment from Major League Baseball
. Giambi subsequently made a few apologies to the media, the most direct of which may have come on May 16, 2007, when he told USA Today, "I was wrong for using that stuff...what we should have done a long time ago was stand up — players, ownership, everybody - and said 'we made a mistake.'" His younger brother Jeremy, a fellow major leaguer and former teammate of Giambi's on the Oakland A's, was also involved in receiving supplements from BALCO, and has admitted to using steroids during his career.
outfielder, who holds the major league records for home runs in both a single season and a career, has been the face of steroids in sports despite never being caught explicitly and steadfastly denying any allegations against him. Bonds'
many detractors point to his large increase in size late in his career, as well as his improvement primarily in his power numbers, despite his age. Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson, was sentenced to jail time after refusing to testify against Bonds before a grand jury investigating the slugger for perjury. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle
, profiled Bonds' use of performance enhancing substances in their 2006 book Game of Shadows
. The reporters used Bonds' testimony in front of a grand jury as their most damning evidence, and refused to reveal their source for the court documents. The U.S. government sought charges against them for leaking the testimony, but dropped them when a former attorney for Conte pled guilty to doing so. Despite all this, Bonds, like Giambi, has never been punished by the MLB in any way because he has not, as of yet, failed any drug test.
On November 15, 2007, Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice based on his grand jury testimony in this investigation. The trial began March 21, 2011;
is a track and field athlete who won five medals, three gold, at the 2000 Summer Olympics
in Sydney
, Australia
. Jones attended the University of North Carolina
on a basketball scholarship, but eventually shifted her focus solely on track. It was there she met shot-putter and then UNC coach C.J. Hunter, whom she married in 1998 and eventually divorced in 2002. A former world champion, Hunter, also involved with BALCO, was caught using performance enhancing drugs and disgraced. The publicity surrounding this led many to believe Jones herself used such drugs as well, an accusation she vehemently denied over and over again. Jones then began a relationship with American sprinter Tim Montgomery
, leading to the birth of a son. Montgomery himself benefited from the banned substances he received from BALCO (in fact he, as well as both Jones and Hunter, can still be seen posing with Conte in photos on his SNAC website), and the one-time 100 meter dash record holder has been stripped of his awards and records since admitting to steroid use, and is now retired. After news of Montgomery's cheating broke, Jones was again faced with increased doubt as to the integrity of her career, yet she continued to deny any wrongdoing. Finally, in October 2007, Jones admitted to lying to federal agents about her use of performance enhancing drugs, though she still maintains she believed the substances she was using were flaxseed oil, not steroids, at the time. Jones has handed over the five Olympic medals she earned in Sydney and officially retired from the sport.
. The 16-year NFL veteran openly advertised Conte's zinc
supplement ZMA, and his involvement with BALCO has only further tainted the career of the four-time Super Bowl champion, who was known throughout his career as a dirty, punishing, almost villainous defender. His name and picture, along with Bonds', Jones', Hunter's, and Montgomery's, can still be found on the website for Conte's new venture, SNAC.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams broke the story concerning U.S. track coach Trevor Graham and his admission to turning a syringe laced with THG in to investigators. That syringe was the catalyst for the entire investigation of Conte’s lab. These journalists also wrote the story about C.J. Hunter (Marion Jones’ ex-husband) and his interview with an IRS agent, in which Hunter told the agents that Jones was taking performance-enhancing drugs during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Hunter said that at times, he injected the drugs into Jones himself. He also admitted to taking steroids, and said that he had obtained them through Conte.
The duo’s most groundbreaking story, however, was their report on October 16, 2004, of a secret audio conversation that contained Greg Anderson (Barry Bonds’ trainer) stating that Bonds had been using steroids provided by Victor Conte and himself. Anderson also revealed the names of numerous Olympic athletes that had been provided with "The Clear", boasting that neither they nor Bonds would test positively on a drug test because the substance was undetectable.
After reporting on the BALCO case, Fainaru-Wada and Williams took their interviews and observations and published Game of Shadows, a journalistic book that explored every aspect of BALCO, beginning with Conte’s early struggles as an aspiring musician and ending with the federal bust of the BALCO headquarters. Publicly, most of the attention the book received was due to the incriminating evidence of Barry Bond’s ties to BALCO.
They begin by telling of young Victor Conte. He was aspiring musician (and hippie, and alleged drug dealer), but those dreams were quickly dashed. So, undaunted, he decided to open his own health clinic. That idea crashed as well, but the third time was a charm for Conte. He decided that he wanted to become a nutritionist and help star athletes to reach their physical potential. Despite not having a background in chemistry, Conte quickly gained respect among athletes and nutrition buffs.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams then delve into the many different schemes by which the drugs were distributed to these high profile athletes. Trips to Mexico, suspicious address names, and steroids disguised as flaxseed oil were a few among many ways in which the drugs got to the athletes. From there, the book goes on to name the many athletes who received the drugs, and the writers go into great detail describing their thoughts on Barry Bonds. They believed that Bonds was a superior athlete, but was jealous of all the attention that Mark McGwire received in his record-breaking season of 1998. Bonds was jealous, they hypothesized, because McGwire was a suspected "juicer" and the Giants’ slugger wanted to prove that he could compete on a level equal to or exceeding that of McGwire.
, instituted a written, league-wide policy. The first time a player tests positive for steroids, he is subject to a 50 game (about 1/3 of a regular season) suspension. For the second offense, the penalty is a 100 (about 2/3 of a regular season) game suspension. Finally, if a third offense occurs, the player is given a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball. This policy compares favorably with the NFL’s policy. A first offense in the NFL gets a minimum 4 game suspension (1/4 of a regular season). A second offense gets a minimum of 8 games, and a third gets a suspension of at least one calendar year. All of these penalties are without pay. Despite this new steroid policy the MLB has faced ridicule because its steroid testing policies are still far more lax than those in almost any other sport.
Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative
The Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative was an American company led by founder and owner Victor Conte, a former bass player for the soul band Tower of Power. In 2003, journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada investigated the company's role in a drug sports scandal later referred to as the...
was a San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
business accused of supplying steroids to Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
players. The incident surrounds a 2002 US Federal government investigation of the laboratory.
History of BALCO
Founded in 1984 by Victor ConteVictor Conte
Victor Conte is a former musician with Tower of Power and founder and president of BALCO, a sports nutrition center in California. He served time in prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute steroids and money laundering....
and his first wife Aubry, BALCO began as Millbrae Holistic, a vitamin shop in Millbrae, California
Millbrae, California
Millbrae is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, just west of San Francisco Bay, with San Bruno on the north and Burlingame on the south. The population was 21,532 at the 2010 census.-History:...
. Initially a business venture to keep food on the table, only one year after opening, Victor Conte closed Millbrae Holistic and started BALCO as a sport supplement company in neighboring Burlingame
Burlingame, California
Burlingame is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame. It is renowned for its many surviving examples of Victorian architecture, its affluence, and...
. Investing in an ICP spectrometer, Conte used his knowledge of nutrition, largely self taught, to devise a system of testing athletes for mineral deficiencies in order to maintain a perfect balance of minerals in the body. Through regular urine and blood testing, Conte would monitor and treat mineral shortages in athletes, supposedly elevating their level of physical wellness dramatically. Surviving his divorce from Aubry and several years of financial hardships, BALCO did not achieve professional success until the summer of 1996 with the addition of NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski to its client list. From there Conte began acquiring additional high-profile athletes with his special concoction of undetectable drugs, manufactured by rogue Illinois chemist Patrick Arnold
Patrick Arnold
Patrick Arnold is an American organic chemist responsible for creating the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone, also known as THG and "the clear". THG, along with two other anabolic steroids that Patrick Arnold manufactured , were drugs at the heart of the BALCO scandal...
and distributed by personal trainer Greg Anderson
Greg Anderson (trainer)
Greg F. Anderson is a former personal trainer, best known for his work with Barry Bonds, and links with BALCO.-Early life:...
.
Drugs distributed
Arnold created a wide range of substances, that when used in a cycle could go relatively undetected by drug testing, even on the Olympic level. Five different types of drugs along with mineral supplements were used to achieve optimum results. Types of drugs include ErythropoietinErythropoietin
Erythropoietin, or its alternatives erythropoetin or erthropoyetin or EPO, is a glycoprotein hormone that controls erythropoiesis, or red blood cell production...
, Human Growth Hormone, Modafinil
Modafinil
Modafinil is an analeptic drug manufactured by Cephalon, and is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, and excessive daytime sleepiness associated with obstructive sleep apnea...
, Testosterone cream
The cream
"The cream" is a testosterone-based ointment that is used in conjunction with anabolic steroids such as tetrahydrogestrinone in order to mask doping in professional athletes....
, and Tetrahydrogestrinone
Tetrahydrogestrinone
Tetrahydrogestrinone is an anabolic steroid developed by Patrick Arnold. It has affinity to the androgen receptor and the progesterone receptor, but not to the estrogen receptor...
. Erythropoietin or EPO is a hormone naturally produced by the body that improves the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen. Originally used to treat anemia, when artificially introduced to the body EPO allows the red blood cells to carry greater amounts of oxygen, enabling the muscles to work longer and recover more quickly than normal. Human Growth Hormone or HGH is a hormone used to treat children diagnosed as pituitary dwarves. In theory this hormone builds muscle mass although some studies suggest it has no effect on building muscle mass to a degree that would benefit athletes. Modafinil is a mild stimulant designed to be taken right before competition in order to sharpen an athlete’s senses and performance. Legally marketed as a treatment for narcolepsy and sleep disorders, Modafinil is not regarded as a high risk drug by athletic governing bodies, but is still banned from competition. Testosterone Cream or "The Cream" is a salve that when rubbed on the body introduces testosterone, trimming body fat and building muscle. Though less effective than testosterone injections, "The Cream" was widely used because it didn’t cause a significant rise in normal testosterone levels when scrutinized by a drug test. Tetrahydrogestrinone, THG, or "The Clear," is a designer anabolic steroid that affects the user like other anabolic steroids, making muscles bigger and stronger. THG was the main steroid distributed by BALCO, with the others products more of a regimen to heighten its effects according to an individual athletes body.
Side effects of steroids
Each of the substances marketed by BALCO had numerous side effects including: increased body hair, blood clots, weight gain, jaundice, increased cholesterol levels, high blood pressure and acne. Men also routinely experience a shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, impotence, hair loss and enlarged breasts, especially with use of "The Clear." But these side effect cease after discontinued use. Women using steroids are prone to increased facial hair, a deeper voice, shrinking of the breasts, disrupted menstruation, and male-pattern baldness. These side effects unfortunately can not be reversed. In addition to these side effects, long term steroid use can also result in heart disease caused by the increase of cholesterol, liver damage and tendon ruptures resulting from the muscle tissue strengthening faster than the tendons.BALCO investigation
Conte, Arnold and Anderson continued selling these substances undetected from 1988 until 2002 when the official federal investigation of BALCO began. Parallel with this investigation, the USADA began its own covert investigation of Conte and his operation. In the summer of 2003 USADA investigators received a syringe with trace amounts of a mysterious substance. The anonymous tipster was Trevor GrahamTrevor Graham
Trevor Graham is a Jamaican-born former athletics coach, based in the United States. Following the BALCO scandal, the US Olympic Committee barred him indefinitely from all its training sites as a number of the athletes he was training had tested positive for drug abuse.-Athletics career:Graham was...
, sprint coach to Marion Jones
Marion Jones
Marion Lois Jones , also known as Marion Jones-Thompson, is a former world champion track and field athlete, and a former professional basketball player for Tulsa Shock in the WNBA...
and Tim Montgomery
Tim Montgomery
Timothy Montgomery is a former American athlete. In 2005, he was stripped of his records – including a now void 100m world record of 9.78 seconds set in 2002 – after being found guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs...
.
The syringe went to Don Catlin
Don Catlin
Don H. Catlin, M.D. is an anti-doping scientist and one of the founders of modern drug-testing in sport. -Career:Catlin has overseen testing for performance-enhancing drugs at the three most recent Olympics held in the United States since the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, as well as testing...
, MD, the founder and then-director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, who hd developed a testing process for the substance, tetrahydrogestrinone
Tetrahydrogestrinone
Tetrahydrogestrinone is an anabolic steroid developed by Patrick Arnold. It has affinity to the androgen receptor and the progesterone receptor, but not to the estrogen receptor...
(THG).
Later that year, the Chicago Tribune named Catlin Sportsman of the Year.
He tested 550 existing samples from athletes, of which 20 proved to be positive for THG.
Athletes including Kelli White
Kelli White
Kelli White is an American former sprinter. She won two gold medals in the World Championships in Paris in 2003. However, on June 18, 2004, she was stripped of her medals, because she tested positive on a drug test. She admitted guilt and testified before the Court of Arbitration for Sport...
, British sprinter Dwain Chambers
Dwain Chambers
Dwain Anthony Chambers is an English sprinter of Afro-Caribbean descent. He has won medals on the international stage numerous times and is one of the fastest European sprinters in the history of recorded athletics. His primary event is the 100 metres sprint, in which he has the second...
, shot putter Kevin Toth
Kevin Toth
Kevin Toth is a former American shot put athlete.His personal best throw is 22.67 meters, which places him 7th on the all-time performers list.-References:* *...
, middle distance runner Regina Jacobs
Regina Jacobs
Regina Jacobs is an American former middle distance runner from Los Angeles. After graduating from Stanford University she represented the USA in three consecutive Summer Olympics, starting in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, before ending her career in disgrace after a positive drug test.Jacobs took...
, and hammer throwers John McEwen
John McEwen
Sir John "Black Jack" McEwen, GCMG, CH , was an Australian politician and the 18th Prime Minister of Australia...
and Melissa Price were subsequently incriminated in the investigation.
Jason Giambi
The former American LeagueAmerican League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major...
MVP and current player for the Colorado Rockies
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies are a Major League Baseball team based in Denver, Colorado. Established in 1991, they started play in 1993 and are in the West Division of the National League. The team is named after the Rocky Mountains...
allegedly admitted to steroid use as well as HGH use in front of a grand jury in December 2003. Jason Giambi
Jason Giambi
Jason Gilbert Giambi is an American professional baseball first baseman with the Colorado Rockies of Major League Baseball.He was the American League MVP in 2000 while with the Oakland Athletics, and is a five-time All-Star who has led the American League in walks four times, in on base percentage...
first became connected with BALCO after inquiring with Greg Anderson about Barry Bonds' training regimen. The much publicized leak of court documents which were said to contain this admission led to a tarnishing of Giambi's career, yet because he never actually failed a drug test, Giambi has, thus far, avoided punishment from Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
. Giambi subsequently made a few apologies to the media, the most direct of which may have come on May 16, 2007, when he told USA Today, "I was wrong for using that stuff...what we should have done a long time ago was stand up — players, ownership, everybody - and said 'we made a mistake.'" His younger brother Jeremy, a fellow major leaguer and former teammate of Giambi's on the Oakland A's, was also involved in receiving supplements from BALCO, and has admitted to using steroids during his career.
Barry Bonds
The former San Francisco GiantsSan Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
outfielder, who holds the major league records for home runs in both a single season and a career, has been the face of steroids in sports despite never being caught explicitly and steadfastly denying any allegations against him. Bonds'
Barry Bonds
Barry Lamar Bonds is an American former Major League Baseball outfielder. Bonds played from 1986 to 2007, for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. He is the son of former major league All-Star Bobby Bonds...
many detractors point to his large increase in size late in his career, as well as his improvement primarily in his power numbers, despite his age. Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson, was sentenced to jail time after refusing to testify against Bonds before a grand jury investigating the slugger for perjury. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, profiled Bonds' use of performance enhancing substances in their 2006 book Game of Shadows
Game of Shadows
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports is a bestselling non-fiction book published on March 23, 2006 and written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle...
. The reporters used Bonds' testimony in front of a grand jury as their most damning evidence, and refused to reveal their source for the court documents. The U.S. government sought charges against them for leaking the testimony, but dropped them when a former attorney for Conte pled guilty to doing so. Despite all this, Bonds, like Giambi, has never been punished by the MLB in any way because he has not, as of yet, failed any drug test.
On November 15, 2007, Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice based on his grand jury testimony in this investigation. The trial began March 21, 2011;
Marion Jones
Marion JonesMarion Jones
Marion Lois Jones , also known as Marion Jones-Thompson, is a former world champion track and field athlete, and a former professional basketball player for Tulsa Shock in the WNBA...
is a track and field athlete who won five medals, three gold, at the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Jones attended the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
on a basketball scholarship, but eventually shifted her focus solely on track. It was there she met shot-putter and then UNC coach C.J. Hunter, whom she married in 1998 and eventually divorced in 2002. A former world champion, Hunter, also involved with BALCO, was caught using performance enhancing drugs and disgraced. The publicity surrounding this led many to believe Jones herself used such drugs as well, an accusation she vehemently denied over and over again. Jones then began a relationship with American sprinter Tim Montgomery
Tim Montgomery
Timothy Montgomery is a former American athlete. In 2005, he was stripped of his records – including a now void 100m world record of 9.78 seconds set in 2002 – after being found guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs...
, leading to the birth of a son. Montgomery himself benefited from the banned substances he received from BALCO (in fact he, as well as both Jones and Hunter, can still be seen posing with Conte in photos on his SNAC website), and the one-time 100 meter dash record holder has been stripped of his awards and records since admitting to steroid use, and is now retired. After news of Montgomery's cheating broke, Jones was again faced with increased doubt as to the integrity of her career, yet she continued to deny any wrongdoing. Finally, in October 2007, Jones admitted to lying to federal agents about her use of performance enhancing drugs, though she still maintains she believed the substances she was using were flaxseed oil, not steroids, at the time. Jones has handed over the five Olympic medals she earned in Sydney and officially retired from the sport.
Bill Romanowski
The most notable football player to be involved in the BALCO scandal is two-time All-Pro linebacker Bill RomanowskiBill Romanowski
William Thomas "Bill" Romanowski is a former American football player. He was born in Vernon, Connecticut. A linebacker, he graduated from Rockville High School in 1984, Boston College in 1988 , and then went on to a 16-year career in the NFL, playing for the San Francisco 49ers , Philadelphia...
. The 16-year NFL veteran openly advertised Conte's zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
supplement ZMA, and his involvement with BALCO has only further tainted the career of the four-time Super Bowl champion, who was known throughout his career as a dirty, punishing, almost villainous defender. His name and picture, along with Bonds', Jones', Hunter's, and Montgomery's, can still be found on the website for Conte's new venture, SNAC.
Media coverage of scandal
The media coverage of the BALCO case has been extremely extensive. The San Francisco Chronicle, and more specifically Chronicle journalists Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, have played a prominent role in covering the story; ultimately collaborating in Game of Shadows, a book chronicling the BALCO scandal.Fainaru-Wada and Williams broke the story concerning U.S. track coach Trevor Graham and his admission to turning a syringe laced with THG in to investigators. That syringe was the catalyst for the entire investigation of Conte’s lab. These journalists also wrote the story about C.J. Hunter (Marion Jones’ ex-husband) and his interview with an IRS agent, in which Hunter told the agents that Jones was taking performance-enhancing drugs during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Hunter said that at times, he injected the drugs into Jones himself. He also admitted to taking steroids, and said that he had obtained them through Conte.
The duo’s most groundbreaking story, however, was their report on October 16, 2004, of a secret audio conversation that contained Greg Anderson (Barry Bonds’ trainer) stating that Bonds had been using steroids provided by Victor Conte and himself. Anderson also revealed the names of numerous Olympic athletes that had been provided with "The Clear", boasting that neither they nor Bonds would test positively on a drug test because the substance was undetectable.
After reporting on the BALCO case, Fainaru-Wada and Williams took their interviews and observations and published Game of Shadows, a journalistic book that explored every aspect of BALCO, beginning with Conte’s early struggles as an aspiring musician and ending with the federal bust of the BALCO headquarters. Publicly, most of the attention the book received was due to the incriminating evidence of Barry Bond’s ties to BALCO.
They begin by telling of young Victor Conte. He was aspiring musician (and hippie, and alleged drug dealer), but those dreams were quickly dashed. So, undaunted, he decided to open his own health clinic. That idea crashed as well, but the third time was a charm for Conte. He decided that he wanted to become a nutritionist and help star athletes to reach their physical potential. Despite not having a background in chemistry, Conte quickly gained respect among athletes and nutrition buffs.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams then delve into the many different schemes by which the drugs were distributed to these high profile athletes. Trips to Mexico, suspicious address names, and steroids disguised as flaxseed oil were a few among many ways in which the drugs got to the athletes. From there, the book goes on to name the many athletes who received the drugs, and the writers go into great detail describing their thoughts on Barry Bonds. They believed that Bonds was a superior athlete, but was jealous of all the attention that Mark McGwire received in his record-breaking season of 1998. Bonds was jealous, they hypothesized, because McGwire was a suspected "juicer" and the Giants’ slugger wanted to prove that he could compete on a level equal to or exceeding that of McGwire.
Impact of BALCO scandal
The BALCO scandal has had a very large impact on sports as a whole, and most noticeably, baseball. Prior to the scandal, every major sport except baseball had a policy against steroids. As a result of the BALCO bust, Major League Baseball commissioner, Bud SeligBud Selig
Allan Huber "Bud" Selig is the ninth and current Commissioner of Major League Baseball, having served in that capacity since 1992 as the acting commissioner, and as the official commissioner since 1998...
, instituted a written, league-wide policy. The first time a player tests positive for steroids, he is subject to a 50 game (about 1/3 of a regular season) suspension. For the second offense, the penalty is a 100 (about 2/3 of a regular season) game suspension. Finally, if a third offense occurs, the player is given a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball. This policy compares favorably with the NFL’s policy. A first offense in the NFL gets a minimum 4 game suspension (1/4 of a regular season). A second offense gets a minimum of 8 games, and a third gets a suspension of at least one calendar year. All of these penalties are without pay. Despite this new steroid policy the MLB has faced ridicule because its steroid testing policies are still far more lax than those in almost any other sport.
BALCO today
Technically speaking, BALCO is extinct, but Victor Conte is a free man and still running a business called "Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning" or "SNAC." After serving a four-month prison sentence prior to pleading guilty in 2005, he no longer sells illegal steroids, but various supplements and vitamins. Patrick Arnold and Greg Anderson each served a three-month jail sentence after pleading guilty, with Anderson serving an additional three-month house arrest sentence. Recently Anderson was incarcerated again after being found in contempt of court for refusing to testify about Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield’s use of banned steroids. BALCO is not completely dead however: on the SNAC website, Conte has BALCO apparel for sale.See also
- Bay Area Laboratory Co-operativeBay Area Laboratory Co-operativeThe Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative was an American company led by founder and owner Victor Conte, a former bass player for the soul band Tower of Power. In 2003, journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada investigated the company's role in a drug sports scandal later referred to as the...
- Doping in sport
- Marion JonesMarion JonesMarion Lois Jones , also known as Marion Jones-Thompson, is a former world champion track and field athlete, and a former professional basketball player for Tulsa Shock in the WNBA...
- TetrahydrogestrinoneTetrahydrogestrinoneTetrahydrogestrinone is an anabolic steroid developed by Patrick Arnold. It has affinity to the androgen receptor and the progesterone receptor, but not to the estrogen receptor...