An off-season program begun last spring by...

An off-season program begun last spring by the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. at 25 schools found nearly one-third of football players at some colleges tested positive for steroids.

“The range we saw was from zero up to 30% positive at some schools,” Frank Uryasz, director of sports sciences for the NCAA, told The Kansas City Star. He told the Associated Press that the overall average of players who tested positive was between 3% and 4%.

“Where sampling is done with little advance notice to athletes, we’ve seen positive rates (for steroids) as high as 30-40%,” said Dr. Don Catlin, director of UCLA’s NCAA-approved drug-testing laboratory. The complete NCAA findings will be released this fall.