Coaches, Choices in Sports

Recognizing Athletes with Substance Abuse Problems

NCAA

Choices in Sports

Athletes

Coaches

Crew Chiefs, Athletic Trainers, and Team Physicians

Coaches are in an important position to notice unusual changes in athletes and offer help when possible. The U.S. Olympic Committee on Substance Abuse Research (1987) has suggested that symptoms of drug use involve:

• Unusually secretive behavior
• Extreme mood swings
• Aggressive behavior and irritability
• Uncooperativeness and hostility
• Loss of interest in school sports or practice
• Persistent lateness and/or absence from work
  school or practice
• New and unusually different friends
• Noticeable loss of weight
• Lacking money
• Avoiding responsibilities
• Deterioration and change in dress, physical
    appearanceand interests
• Refusing to discuss friends and strongly denying or
    defending issues relating to drug use and abuse
• Mental deterioration, disordered thinking, paranoid
    behavior


Coaches may feel uncomfortable about approaching a student athlete about possible drug use; however, difficult situations can be improved when someone offers help and shows a caring attitude toward a student athlete with a problem. Young and Grassard (1986) suggested that coaches who suspect that a student athlete has a problem with drugs should:

• Have the courage to say something
• Confront with facts
• Communicate a caring attitude
• Know where to go for help and make referrals.