HONOLULU (AP) -University of Hawaii athletic officials on Monday said they will look into allegations raised by a former receiver, including the claim that school officials and players manipulated NCAA-mandated drug tests.
Ian Sample, who recently published a book chronicling the 2006 season entitled, “Once A Warrior,” released unpublished material on his blog about excessive drinking, widespread use of marijuana, sex with groupies and rigged drug tests.
Sample, who now plays professional football in Japan, wrote that he’s “convinced the ‘random’ tests are not random at all.”
“The higher ups definitely know what they are doing when they decide who will be tested,” he wrote. “However, getting tested doesn’t necessarily mean getting caught, every once in a while a player will side step a positive test result by flushing out their system (the real smokers know where to go to get a cleansing elixir).”
John McNamara, Hawaii’s associate athletic director, said officials are reviewing and evaluating the content of the book and the Internet postings.
“Additionally, we will meet with the necessary parties and determine what steps, if any, need to be taken,” he said in an e-mail.
He did not say when the meeting would take place.
Warriors coach June Jones emphatically denied Sample’s claim about the drug testing, calling it a “lie.”
“We don’t have anything to do with it,” he said, adding that the NCAA supplies a random lists of players, not the school.
“These are the greatest kids in the world,” he said. “It’s a shame someone would throw them under the bus. With the Internet, anyone can say what they want. It’s so dishonorable.”
Sample told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Jones is entitled to his opinion.
“But when he talks about throwing people under the bus, if he gets really bored one day and goes to the public library and reads the book, he might have some different thoughts,” he said.
Sample, who had 54 catches for 690 yards and 10 touchdowns for Hawaii last season, wrote that when one of the random urine tests were conducted, “it’s amazing that none of our valuable players are ever selected, especially the ones known for smoking weed.
“The players that are selected to go piss in a cup are the ones less valuable and the ones that have become a nuisance to coaches or the team.”
Sample’s omitted passages were posted on his blog at myspace.com.
George Engebretson, of Watermark Publishing in Honolulu, said he decided not to include Sample’s more controversial material in the book, even though it may have resulted in more sales.
“I don’t think it really contributed to the story that Ian and I together wanted to tell,” he said.
Sample wrote that marijuana was the drug of choice for the Warriors, but said he believed some players used steroids.
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