The performance enhancing drugs report that came out involving Ray Lewis has now expanded to another high-profile football team, with the Alabama Crimson Tide being accused of receiving banned substances prior to the 2012 BCS Championship game against LSU.
According to a Sports Illustrated report that came out on Tuesday, Alabama players received the same types of banned substances produced by Sports with Alternatives to Steroids (S.W.A.T.S.) that Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis reportedly did, including deer antler spray. The report says that several Alabama football players received S.W.A.T.S. products prior to the Crimson Tide's January 2012 win over LSU in the BCS national title game.
The article quotes a moment from before the game when S.W.A.T.S. representative Christopher Key showed Sports Illustrated video of him passing out "chips" to Alabama players two days before the BCS game. According to Yahoo, "chips" are stickers that athletes place on their wrists and heart for an alleged energy boost.
According to SI: Key spoke to a group of players in a hotel room and two players are specifically mentioned in the article were defensive end Quinton Dial and linebacker Alex Watkins.
From Sports Illustrated: "And then Key passed out his remedy for the frequencies: stickers, which he calls chips, bearing holograms of a pyramid. Key told the players that on game day they should place the chips on three acupuncture points - one on the inside of each wrist before they tape their arms (the chips also come embedded in bracelets), and one over the heart. "It's going to help your heart have so much more energy," he said. "Come the fourth quarter, you guys will not be gassed at all."
Watkins later confirmed the effectiveness of the company's chips, "negatively charged" water and deer-antler pills in a YouTube video, SI reported. Key gave the players the substances for free and said that he would claim they purchased the products from him.
The report also says that LSU players used S.W.A.T.S. products prior to beating Alabama in November 2011, according to SI. Many SWATS products, including the deer antler spray reportedly used by Ray Lewis, contains IGF-1, which can help with muscle growth and is banned by the NFL. Auburn has also been tied to the controversial company in the past.
The SI report also stated that NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman, baseball player Johnny Damon and golfer Vijay Singh obtained products from S.W.A.T.S.
The report overtook Media Day at the Super Bowl for Ray Lewis, who refuted the comments made in the article, but did not give specific comments on the story.
"Two years ago, that was the same report," he said. "It's not worthy of the press."
When asked directly whether he had used the spray during his recovery this season, Lewis said, "Nah, never."
Baltimore coach John Harbaugh said he found out about the SI story during the team's bus ride to the Superdome for media day.
"I have not talked to Ray about that personally," Harbaugh said. "What I do know about that is Ray has worked incredibly and extremely hard to get back, so I hate to see anything diminish the work ethic that he's put in to get to where he is right now. And my understanding is Ray has passed every random, you know, substance test that he's taken throughout the course of his whole career. So there's never been a test that's shown up anything along those lines."
Deer antler extract is a spray that can help athletes recover from injuries faster due to the presence of small amounts of deer IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor-1), which is what the liver converts HGH into, resulting in artificially enhanced muscle regeneration and growth, according to ESPN.com.
DeerAntlerSpray.org says the substance can be a great help to athletes:
"The side effect of this is that by using deer antler spray one can improve athletic performance, simulate the metabolism, improve the overall condition of the heart, and help fight off colds and flu, the site says. "By allowing the body to burn off more stored sugars and require the burning of fat stores to fuel increased muscle use, this spray can do a lot in way of rejuvenation on the body. This may help with nerve damage repair as well."
Alabama defeated LSU in the championship game for their first of back-to-back BCS championships.