None of the past 10,000 drug tests performed on student-athletes at University of Miami has shown a positive result for anabolic steroids, university officials said Thursday night.
The statement comes amid reports the Hurricanes baseball program has been linked to a Major League Baseball investigation into performance-enhancing drug use and whether they received those products from an anti-aging clinic in South Florida.
And it’s a somewhat out-of-character move for Miami, which as a private institution typically does not release sensitive information such as details of its drug-testing policy publicly.
The statement also makes clear that Miami does not test for human growth hormone, “like many of our peer institutions, the NCAA and many professional sports leagues,” the university said.
Miami’s connection to the latest drug scandal in baseball was revealed late last month, when the alternative weekly newspaper, Miami New Times, said New York Yankee and Miami trustee Alex Rodriguez was among a group of players listed in records of a defunct Florida anti-aging clinic that is alleged to have sold PEDs. Rodriguez’s name is on the Miami baseball stadium, after he pledged $3.9 million to a renovation project several years ago.
The statement from Miami is not attributed to any one person, though typically such releases are crafted with direct involvement from the office of the university president, Donna Shalala — a former U.S. secretary of health and human services.
“The University of Miami’s drug-testing policy is consistent with those at most NCAA Division I programs and provides more stringent penalties — including game suspensions for first-time positive results — than many of our peers,” said the university’s statement.
The New Times report said Rodriguez bought HGH and other performance-enhancing substances from 2009 to 2012 from Biogenesis of America LLC, a now-closed company based in Coral Gables. That report, and others that have followed, also linked former MVP Ryan Braun of Milwaukee, and Washington Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez, who went to high school in the Miami area, to the same clinic.
Also named in The New Times report is Miami strength coach Jimmy Goins, whose involvement is the subject of a university investigation.
