The dark black cloud hanging over MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s head that is the “Steroid Era” descended on Iowa State last week, hitting the Cyclones where it counts.

Matt Robertson, senior linebacker and co-leader in tackles from 2005 for the Cyclones, was announced to have tested positive for an NCAA-banned substance. The positive test carries a one-year suspension and effectively ends Robertson’s career with the Cyclones.

You can call them steroids. You can call them performance-enhancing drugs or supplements, but it doesn’t matter how you try to dress them up. Taking them is still cheating and they’re still one of the biggest problems facing American sports today.

There are a couple of things that need to be done.

The first thing is that the Food and Drug Administration needs to get a handle on the “supplement” situation. Without federal regulation, companies can make their wonder drugs, throw them in a bottle and ship them off to GNC without any concern to what or how much they put in their pills.

The bottle labels that supposedly display the ingredients don’t provide ample warnings. Not only can this spotty labeling ruin unsuspecting athletes’ careers, but it’s just downright dangerous to their health.

Surely not everyone thinks it’s a coincidence that summer camps for college football teams and training camps for NFL teams are beginning to produce deaths annually.

Yes, we’ve been told the drug Robertson took was over-the-counter and he didn’t know it was illegal, but he still took it and still broke the rules.

We’ve also been told coaching staffs go out of their way to educate players on what’s OK and what isn’t. Things that are borderline are best avoided, or at the very least checked out by the training staff ahead of time, and Robertson knew this, before and after taking the supplement.

Coach Dan McCarney said although he feels bad for Robertson’s fate, his decision was unacceptable. To his credit, Robertson owned up to the mistake and took full responsibility for it, which is more than can be said for the dozen or so major leaguers who claimed they didn’t know how substances got into their bodies.

The second thing that needs to be done is that MLB, the NCAA – anyone involved in testing for these drugs – needs to remove the cowardly “confidential” clause in the tests. If you’re positive then I want to see what you’re positive for. Don’t let everyone hide behind the “I didn’t know” excuse.

Make an example out of the rule breakers. If it comes out you tested positive for something you can only take by injecting yourself in the butt, then we know you knew exactly what you were doing. And if it’s a common supplement with a little extra in it, I’ll bet GNC will see that product’s sales drop.

Congress can sit ready with as many record books and erasers as they can find for as long as they want. They can strengthen all the testing policies they want to. But until they regulate these things to the point at which I can’t go to GNC and come back here looking like Hulk Hogan, it will all just be empty threats.

– Brett McIntyre is a junior in meteorology from Fort Dodge.