Desperate For The Winning Edge -- Athletes Willing To Try Anything To Get Bigger, Faster, Even Smarter

One hour before tipoff, Seattle Center Coliseum. A teenage boy slips into a quiet dressing room and hands a veteran player a small brown bag containing a fresh cup of the magic potion.

It's chlorophyl. Michael Cage pokes a straw into the drink and, as he does before every game, sips on the Sonic-green liquid plant life.

"Very good for you," he says. "Not very good tasting." All NBA players can run, pass and shoot. Cage may be the only one who can photosynthesize. But under no condition is he alone when it comes to weird products athletes in all sports use to get an edge on opponents. We're not talking steroids here. We're talking ergogenic aids - nutritional supplements, pharmacological stimulants and other products that enhance performance - that are sometimes healthy, sometimes not, but do not violate the rules of professional or college sports organizations.

It's a wild, wild world in America's locker rooms, full of enough superstition that the Food and Drug Administration is trying to crack down on nutritional-supplement companies by requiring them to document their sometimes outlandish claims.

The FDA has checked up plenty, though, on over-the-counter medicines, another variety of products that athletes use in trying to improve their performance in the increasingly competitive, and lucrative, sports industry.

"Over the years, I've seen every conceivable thing that you can imagine - Afrin, decongestant-antihistamines, anything that's going to give you an enhanced psychological, breathing or speed-like effect," said Trey Junkin, a Seahawk tight end who has played 11 years in the NFL.

"Every athlete has his own basic belief and that belief may come from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard this or that is going to work. And if they use it, and they make a catch or run they didn't think they were going to make, or it made them feel stronger or faster or whatever - well, now they live and die by it.

"It's basically all a bunch of crap."

Take chlorophyl. Cage believes the stuff cleans out the exhaust and other pollution that enters his body. Doctors say there's not a lot of medical proof on the value of chlorophyl, except that it gets rid of halitosis and serves as a diuretic. Translation: Cage has good breath and but may have to run to the restroom in the first quarter.

But to many athletes, lack of proof does not mean no proof. Said Rony Seikaly, Miami Heat center: "There's a theory: Whatever works."

Seikaly uses a mix of bee jelly with ginseng, a plant-stem extract the Chinese have been using for centuries as a medicine. Seikaly said he takes it when he needs a burst of energy, and because he believes it "keeps your mind from deteriorating."

Ricky Pierce of the Sonics uses ginseng, as do several members of the Seahawks. Vinnie Johnson, the former Sonic and Detroit Piston guard, was known for opening a vile of ginseng during games when he needed a lift.

The value of ginseng is its properties - steroids, said Dr. Bruce Woolley, a consultant to the NCAA and U.S. Olympic Committee. He said ginseng doesn't have any anabolic steroids, which are illegal and banned in NFL, NCAA and Olympic competition, but they pack a boost nonetheless, and like anabolic steroids can promote muscle growth.

The use of natural products from Asia has drawn particular attention as Chinese women have begun dominating track and swimming over the past year. Their coaches partly attribute the sudden success to a diet that includes a worm from the hills of western China and a fungus that grows on the worm after it dies. The Chinese deny the accusation made by some U.S. and European coaches that the secret to their success is anabolic steroids.

Many nutritional-supplement manufacturers don't mind any such mixup, though. They in fact encourage the association while pitching their products as viable and safe "steroid alternatives."

Walk into any health-food store, pick up any muscle magazine, and the gullible consumer is led to believe that science has finally found a healthy substitute for anabolic steroids, which can cause kidney damage, baldness and impotency in men, and masculinization and abnormal menstrual cycles in women.

To sell the nutritional supplements to the general public, manufacturers solicit the endorsement of professional athletes. They swamp teams and athletes with free samples of the latest products, hoping they can attach their credibility to that of the player or organization.

Mark McGwire of the Oakland Athletics, for instance, is quoted in advertisements for a California company as saying that he "gained 12 pounds of muscle and doubled my strength in one month" by using its nutritional supplements. The company's literature says that McGwire was advised to take 30 tablets of Anabol-350, 12 grams of GH Releaser and eight to 12 Vanadyl tablets a day.

The name Anabol sounds a lot like Dianabol, an anabolic steroid, and the name GH Releaser verbally reminds one of human growth hormone, another illegal drug used by athletes to build muscle. And the company doesn't tell you, unless you ask, that Mark's brother Jay McGwire is part-owner of the enterprise.

Woolley hasn't tested the McGwire-endorsed products but doubts they can deliver on some of their key promises, particularly the claim that GH Releaser, billed as a blend of amino acids, can "increase growth hormone release by 700 percent above normal."

That dramatic an increase is impossible, said Woolley, a professor of pharmacology and nutrition at Brigham Young University, and author of "Athletic Drug Reference," a book used by physicians.

Jocks and garage chemists are not the only ones making amazing claims. The largely unregulated industry was recently joined by Scott Connelly, a cardiac and organ-transplant surgeon from California who in the process of working with intensive-care hospital patients developed an "engineered food" that his company later billed as "the first effective natural alternative to steroids."

In the Dallas Cowboy training camp last summer, Pro Bowl players Troy Aikman, Darryl Johnston and a dozen other players used the "engineered food," which is actually a nutrient-packed powder that mixes into everyday drinks.

Mike Woicek, trainer for the Cowboys, calls the powder "good nutrition" but dismisses the idea that it works the same magic as steroids. So does safety Bill Bates, who used and liked the product: "I don't know how anybody can say it's a replacement for steroids, because it's not."

Seahawk trainer Jim Whitesel and strength coach Frank Raines also scoff at the notion that nutritional supplements or any other products mimic the effect of steroids.

"I try to discourage guys from using these products," Raines said. "But it's a whole frame of mind in football, in which guys feel that at this level they need to do something. A lot of times it's a just a placebo effect."

Raines instead recommends a balanced diet, but he's fighting an age-old problem. The use of ergogenic aids in sports dates to the third century B.C., when the Greeks were known to ingest mushrooms to improve athletic performance. Gladiators later used stimulants in the famed Circus Maximus to overcome fatigue and injury.

Today, caffeine in any form remains popular among athletes because it stimulates the central nervous system. Athletes report that it makes them feel more alert and clear-thinking, although medical studies conflict on the values and dangers of large doses of caffeine.

James Jefferson, Seahawk defensive back, said he's taken an over-the-counter drug called Uptime for the past five years. He said he learned about the stimulant from another Seahawk player, although he concedes he's not sure what's in it other than caffeine.

"I don't know what the hell it is," Jefferson said. "It works, so I take it. I went out and jogged a three-mile loop one time and came in at a decent time. I took some Uptime the next day and ran about a minute faster than the day before. That convinced me Uptime was up."

According to the company, three caplets of Uptime equal the amount of caffeine in one cup of coffee, or roughly 2 to 3 micrograms per milliliter. That isn't much by performance-enhancing standards. For instance, the NCAA prohibits more than 15 micrograms per milliliter of caffeine in the urine, and the International Olympic Committee considers 12 micrograms an unfair advantage (the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball allow unlimited use of the drug).

But the caffeine packs a powerful punch when combined with the 10 other ingredients in Uptime, including vitamin C, spirolina (seaweed), cayenne pepper and ginseng.

"You're supposed to take one (tablet) for every 50 pounds of body weight but I can only take three," said Jefferson, who is 195 pounds. "I can't take four or I'll get sick. I took six once before a game in New York . . . and I was, like, shaking."

Washington Redskin players in the late 1980s washed down Sudafed with Coca-Cola before games, said Raines, who joined the Seahawks in 1990 after five years with Washington. Raines said it gave the players a "real quick buzz."

No wonder. Caffeine combined with the active ingredients in many over-the-counter cold medicines - phenylpropanolamine and ephedrine - can have the effect of amphetamines when taken in large doses, according to "Drugs and the Athlete," a book written for physicians.

The book states that a caffeine-ephedrine mix, like amphetamines - prescription drugs that stimulate the central nervous system - may cause euphoria and increased alertness, as well as possible psychosis and hallucinations. Prolonged overuse of ephedrine has been linked to heart attacks.

Ephedrine also is used in the formation of methamphetamine, which is the basis for the street drugs "ice" and "ecstasy," Woolley said. Seeking the same boost that methamphetamine would provide, a small group of gonzo athletes have gone so far as to try to extract the drug from certain bronchial inhalers, which are also over-the-counter products. It often makes them revoltingly sick, he said.

Still used are ammonia tablets, which serve as a respiratory and circulatory stimulant when kept below toxic levels. Reggie Lewis, the late Boston Celtic, was among the NBA players known to break them open during games, before his death last year from unrelated causes.

Woolley advises physicians to beware of patients who want early refills of birth-control pills. He said that female bodybuilders are switching from anabolic steroids to certain kinds of birth-control pills, taking 15 to 20 of them a day. Men are taking them now too, and getting them from their girlfriends, he said.

Warnings about cancer and damage to the heart, liver, kidney either aren't heard, or are ignored. Of the specific kind of birth-control pill that promotes muscle growth, Woolley said, "It seems to be those are the only pills that girls are losing" when they ask for refills.

In the past year, athletes have also begun using "smart drinks" - nonalcoholic blends of various amino acids, herbs and sometimes prescription drugs - and other products to help them "think better" during performance, Woolley said. One of the drugs that has gained favor was developed to treat Alzheimer's disease, and like other products created for medical problems, was co-opted by the athletic culture.

Then there are athletes such as 6-foot-6, 305-pound Seahawk tackle Bill Hitchcock, who replaced weight-gain supplements with marriage to a cook who feeds him seconds, thirds and fourths. Miami Heat forward Glen Rice confesses an addiction to nothing more than a pregame sugar fix, adding, "I have bad games when I don't get my Snickers and Coca-Cola." Ken Griffey Jr. is known for playing well after eating food of any kind between innings.

Shawn Kemp's secret to jumping through the roof of small gyms is ample doses of hard work and God-given genetics. The SuperSonics' All-Star forward dismisses all ergogenic aids. "I'm already riled up and ready to go," he said.

Still, Woolley estimates that more than half of all professional athletes use some form of legal or illegal product to give them a perceived edge on the competition. And with many athletes, Rule No. 1 is: If one pill, drink or other supplement works, two must work better, and so on. The obsessive mentality of high-stakes competition can lend itself to overindulgence, even when the dangers are apparent and the benefits unproved.

Woolley doesn't go as far as to say the use of performance-enhancing products is more prevalent than it was a decade ago. If there's any change, he said, athletes increasingly raid the health stores instead of the pharmacies, as the federal government cracks down on steroid trafficking and the market gets flooded with legal products that allegedly help the body release growth hormones.

No longer, however, does Pop- eye, with his spinach, seem to have all the answers.