It was, predictably, the first question asked of Kenjon Barner,@@checked before crash@@ and his initial response came with a sly smile.
“What article?”@@it would be cool if this story came with video to show this@@
The Ducks were off from practice on Wednesday when ESPN The Magazine broke a story about marijuana use within the Oregon football program. But it wasn’t until Thursday, under a steady Eugene rain, that they were forced to answer the tough questions. Barner, for his part, more or less shrugged off the assertion that Oregon has a “pot problem.”
“I haven’t read (the article), so I can’t really comment on it,” Barner said. “But, I’ve heard things about it from ex-players. I don’t know what they did back then, but I’d hope our culture is different.”
Asked about the estimate that 40 to 60 percent of Oregon’s players use marijuana, he made clear that he didn’t buy into that notion.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I’m not everybody on this team, so I can’t speak for everybody. But like I said, I hope the culture is different …  Our coaching staff, they do a great job of educating — educating us on things that help our body and things that can do things to limit our bodies.”
Indeed, Oregon head coach Chip Kelly seconded the notion that his job — no matter what the numbers are@@right@@ — is to educate his players on the potential consequences of their actions.
“You’re coaching 18- to 22-year-old kids,” Kelly said. “They’re in a mistake-making phase of their lives.@@like all life is@@ No one goes through life without making a mistake, but I think the biggest thing is: Do you learn from your mistake? So, I believe our job and what our responsibility is is to educate these kids.
“Not just, ‘Don’t do it — because if you get caught, here’s the ramification.’ You shouldn’t be doing it because of really the effects that it has on you. And that’s what we do as a group.”
Kelly’s press conference was brisk at just under six minutes, but he was calm and reflective throughout — even admitting that in an ideal world, he would institute a random drug-testing program.
“Because of state law, we have to have probable cause to test them,” he said. “I wish we didn’t have to have probable cause; if we had random (testing),@@guilty until proven innocent, eh mr. i don’t care what the law is?@@ I could answer that question right now and say exactly what the data is. But we don’t have to data because we can’t test every kid on our team.”
To be clear, Kelly agreed with Barner that the numbers presented in the ESPN piece sounded inflated. For him, the proof lies in the team’s record.
“The single biggest determining factor on sports performance is central nervous system readiness, i.e. your brain,” Kelly said. “And, if we had that many kids doing it, we wouldn’t be 34-6.”
Yet, even Kelly and his ever-observant staff can’t know what their students do outside of football, no matter how vigilant they remain. They recognize this and reconcile the ubiquitous presence of temptation with a resolve to educate their players in the best way possible.
“I’m not going to be naive and say that nobody on this team or nobody has smoked marijuana in college,” defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=22687@@ said. “It’s a college atmosphere … Obviously some athletes do that; hopefully our guys know better. They’ve been told what they need to do. And if we think there’s a problem, we drug test guys. We certainly don’t turn our head away if we do have someone who has tested positive.”
And despite its explosive nature, ESPN’s article did not reveal any positive drug tests from current players. So, the strategy for now is to acknowledge the story and move forward. There’s still a week of spring practice to be completed, after all.
“It’s an article; somebody put it out there,” linebacker Michael Clay@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=204773762@@ said. “But, we’re all here to go to school and play football, so don’t lose focus on that. Can’t go this far and have something come here and put a damper on things.”