Everyone knows that athletes are the social highlighters to an otherwise monotone student population. You can spot a basketball player from a mile a way, and football players seem to have a certain swag about them. Women want to be with them, and men want to be just like them. Those lucky few Fresno State students who fit into the college sports world are known from one dorm to another and are most definately swarmed with friends. But staying in the bubbling pool of awesome takes more than just talent and luck. It takes a certain amount of sobriety.

Athletes, male and female, are held under a very strict code. No drugs, no alcohol, no abuse. Once a month these ball loving, track running, hard working collegiates get shoved into a bathroom and are expected to pee into a cup so that an analysis can be run. If you pass, your all set but if you fail the consequences start raining down. But what makes it worse is that these once a month drug testings are totally random and completely unannounced. It may be true that only a small population of the athletes get tested, but it’s still stressful just thinking that maybe you happened to eat too many poppy seed muffins that morning and that your drug meter might just go off. And as well as random testings, there are of course those of the scheduled variety and the kind that come up when a player is acting suspicious. Athletics may hold a certain appeal, but it’s not without hard work and a bit of Russian roulette.

Tags: Campus