BY MINDY PIERCE
Lions’ Pride Assistant Sports Editor

It was supposed to be an hour long meeting in the student center boardroom for all student athletes.

It wasn’t.

Saint Leo’s entire student athlete body was held by the athletic department on September 14 for more than four hours.

Fran Reidy, the director of athletics, informed the student athletes that he would not keep them past an hour, until he got to the last slide of his presentation, which brought up drug testing. Reidy then made the announcement to drug test every student athlete in the room that night. Everyone in the room was shocked, even the coaches were not told of this beforehand.

The student athletes were held on the second floor of the student community center and were not allowed to leave until they submitted their drug test.

There were two lines, one for the men, and one for the women, with two people administering the test for more than 300 athletes. Some athletes did not get to leave until past midnight. Many had assignments due online that night, and for sports like men’s and women’s cross country, there was a morning practice at 6:30 a.m.

The drug test only tested street drugs and not PED (performance enhancing drugs). Out of 301 drug tests submitted, 26 were sent for a more comprehensive review. The drug testing results came back at under 10 percent positive. While this drug test only checked for street drugs, Reidy has made it known that in the future they will be checking for PEDs and maybe alcohol, but have not disclosed that information at this time.

Some athletes, however, feel differently about the specific drugs that were being tested.

Senior Anna Riss, a women’s golf player, stated, “I think it would have been better to test for performance enhancing drugs instead of street drugs! Enhancers are what matter in competition,not marijuana!”

Sophomore Allison Cary takes a slightly different point of view.

“I think it’s good to start off the school year knowing that no one has an unfair advantage starting off the athletic season.”

The Athletic Department has not made it known what they are going to do exactly for those athletes who failed the drug test. The message at the meeting was to be “ALL IN or OUT.”

An e-mail written by Reidy addressed to student athletes, said, “For those who have a problem and really want help, we will assist you in every way possible. For those who are not committed and don’t really want to conform to the rules of the team and department, we will divorce you and do it quite callously.”

While some student athletes in the past at SLU could go through all four years of college without getting drug tested, this is not going to be the case now or in the future.

The Athletic Department has made sure of that.