So long as there are illegal drugs to be popped, injected or smoked, there will be a desperate athlete looking to get an edge on the field or take the edge off after a game.
It’s a chronic problem. To avoid detection, a cheater will try almost anything.
So you knew there was a market for the amazing Whizzinator, a prosthetic penis made in America and sold to fool those nosy drug testers employed by the NCAA, MLB, IOC and every other letter in the alphabet of sports bureaucracy.
“The Original Whizzinator” costs 155 bucks. The plastic device, according to its California manufacturer, comes complete with dehydrated urine, syringe and heat pads to ensure a clean test.
Best of all, it’s available in a variety of colors, including tan, perfect for the steroid-sculpted jock who enjoys his R&R on the nude beach.
Which begs the question: Why didn’t Ron Popeil, inventor of the pocket fisherman, think of this amazing product first?
The cozy little secret is out of the bag, however, thanks to a luggage search of Minnesota Vikings running back Onterrio Smith.
Smith recently got busted with a Whizzinator in his possession by airport security, who discovered what they suspected might be cocaine was actually powdered urine. What a relief.
And what an embarrassment.
“Can you imagine security personnel whipping out the Whizzinator from your bag in the airport? I would imagine it would attract a few stares from the people around you in line at the metal detector,” Kay Hawes, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, told me Thursday.
Smith told authorities the Whizzinator did not belong to him, insisting he was only carrying it for a loved one.
Good answer.
Hey, anybody with a heart can feel the burn of Smith’s blush from here.
But how big a dope must this guy be? Every frequent flier should know airports have become Americans’ favorite place to have their privacy invaded.
At the outset of a road trip to an NBA playoff game, I won the lottery for secondary screening, and as contents of my suitcase emptied, perfect strangers discovered the answer to that age-old question: boxers or briefs?
I know a skier who reached down to pet a cute German shepherd doggie at baggage claim, then spent the next hour sweating as customs agents grilled him about the source of that marijuana scent.
In an asterisk age, when even someone as blind as baseball commissioner Bud Selig now sees the need to clean up his game, sometimes big brother crosses the line to hysteria, and faster than you can say witch hunt, a hitter as pure as Rockies first baseman Todd Helton is on national television, forced to deny baseless rumors of steroid use.
As sure as Smith, a two-time violator of the NFL’s substance-abuse policy, is destined to hear cracks from hecklers that he runs better on grass, you can be certain more pro athletes are worried about being investigated for ganja than performance-enhancing drugs.
Paranoia is why the Whizzinator was invented.
It’s impossible to buy the publicity of free endorsements the device has received from the worlds of sports and entertainment. Tom Sizemore, acclaimed for his role in the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” was accused by Los Angeles prosecutors earlier this year for allegedly showing up at a drug test with the Whizzinator sewn in his underwear. The man must have a great tailor.
Upon answering the telephone, a receptionist at Puck Technology headquarters pleasantly informed me the geniuses behind the Whizzinator no longer talked to the media. During an interview with a weekly California publication several years ago, however, company co-founder Jerry Wills identified himself as a child of the 1960s who views the Constitution with a cynical eye.
“The only rights you have are what you can get away with,” Wills declared.
Founding father James Madison could not have said it better himself.
But this game is over.
“We’re aware of devices like the Whizzinator, because we know individuals who wish to cheat will go to great lengths to circumvent a drug test,” Hawes said.
Before producing a sample, a male athlete should be asked by an observer to drop his drawers, lift his shirt and spin 360 degrees, according to Hawes.
So it’s come to this. Cheaters have forced drug tests to be show and tell.
Gee whiz.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
