Lacrosse is Number One (At Drugs and Stuff)!

Ay-yi-yi.

Back in 1991, the Stanford Band (actually, they're the Leland Stanford Junior Marching Band, but that's only for Formal Freddies) put out an album called "The Band is Not Helping." The titled was co-opted from a piece that ran in The Stanford Daily of the same name. The article took to task the band for its antics, on the field and off. The piece was mere student stuffiness, though, as we all know that the Stanford Band's shenanigans are cheeky and fun.

It turns out that college lacrosse players are suffering from a bit of the same antic-induced scorn. Unfortunately, their shenanigans are kind of cruel and tragic. From Bloomberg via Deadspin:

Men’s lacrosse players were the biggest illicit drug users among athletes competing in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 23 sanctioned sports, according to a survey by the governing body.

They led all other sports in the use of amphetamines, anabolic steroids, cocaine, marijuana and narcotics, according to the NCAA’s quadrennial survey, which included 20,474 responses from athletes for the 2009 school year.

As my buddy Dave wrote to me when he forwarded the article, partying with some of these guys falls the same category as "never get involved in a land war in Asia" or "never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line."

Now, it should be noted that the prevalence of this kind of illict drug use is somewhat muted in the overall. The report indicates that 10.8 of lacrosse players maintained narcotics use within the last year, but the fact remains that "men's lacrosse players led the way in drug use by a wide margin among specific teams."

Look: I'm not here to cast stones and creates pariahs. However, you can't be messing around with steroids, blow, and greenies. You just can't. That stuff will burn you today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Plus, you know, Gary Gait thinks messing around with that kind of stuff on the weekend is a terrible idea. Do you have the stones to tell Gait to shove it? Didn't think so.