03-10-2017, 12:39 PM
(03-10-2017, 12:05 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: The filing, which was prepared by lawyers for the players suing the league, asserts that “every doctor deposed so far . . . has testified that they violated one or more” federal drug laws and regulations “while serving in their capacity as a team doctor.” Anthony Yates, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ team doctor and past president of the NFL Physicians Society, testified in a deposition that “a majority of clubs as of 2010 had trainers controlling and handling prescription medications and controlled substances when they should not have,” the filing states.
At times, team medical staff displayed a cavalier attitude toward federal guidelines that govern dispensing medicine. In August 2009, for example, Paul Sparling, the Cincinnati Bengals’ head trainer, wrote in an email: “Can you have your office fax a copy of your DEA certificate to me? I need it for my records when the NFL ‘pill counters’ come to see if we are doing things right. Don’t worry, I’m pretty good at keeping them off the trail!”
The Bengals did not make Sparling available for comment or respond to questions about his 2010 email.
In a November 2010 email, Sparling, the Bengals’ trainer, wrote to his counterpart with the Detroit Lions, complaining about the new program. “Until the new [program] is actually in effect,” he said, “we will continue to do as we have done for the past 42 years. . . . I sure would love to know who blew up the system that worked all these years.”
http://deadspin.com/lawsuit-nfl-teams-repeatedly-broke-federal-drug-laws-1793146570
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfl-abuse-of-painkillers-and-other-drugs-described-in-court-filings/2017/03/09/be1a71d8-035a-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html?utm_term=.90fcd005ed20
The first quote reads as sarcasm. The second indicates Sparling thought the new program was solving a problem that didn't exist. Maybe he was wrong about that - maybe the league was playing fast and loose with drug laws, but I wouldn't look for Sparling's picture in the Post Office any time soon. I would bet dollars to donuts he wasn't doing anything that involved illegal drugs, that his administration of medication was not reckless, and that if there were legal issues and laws that were skirted by standard operating procedure league wide he really didn't know that.
JOHN ROBERTS: From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice... I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
