District to ban supplement sale.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

The Eugene School District will likely adopt a new policy prohibiting coaches and other district staff from promoting student use of nutritional supplements, officials said this week.

The move follows the report last week that Chris Miller, the popular head football coach at South Eugene High School, was selling a supplement meant to enhance performance to at least a dozen of his players. Miller, hired in 2002, is part-owner of the company that makes the supplement, called EndoCre3.

Top district officials said they didn't know Miller was selling the product to students until they learned of it through a Nov. 20 Register-Guard article about supplement use by young athletes.

"I was not aware of it," Superintendent George Russell said; nor, he said, were retired South Eugene Principal Jerry Henderson, who hired Miller, or current Principal Laurie Moses.

Moses told Miller earlier this week to halt sales of the creatine-based supplement to players, district spokesman Kelly McIver said. Those students may choose, however, to buy the product directly from Miller's downtown Eugene retail outlet, C Mill Smoothies.

"What he is being told is that he can't promote it, he can't recommend it to his parents or his players and he can't tell them that if they go to buy things at his store that they'll get some kind of discount," McIver said.

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance that the body stores in muscles and uses as a source of energy during high-intensity exercise. The use of creatine-based supplements is common among athletes, and studies have found it safe and effective, according to one leading researcher.

However, pediatricians discourage its use, as do many coaches and the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Setting aside concerns about whether supplement use is advisable for youngsters, Miller was in clear violation of district policy and state statute for selling his product to his players, Russell said.

District policy prohibits employees from soliciting students or their parents "for the purpose of selling or promoting the sale of goods or services from which any personal gain may be derived," and state law says no public employee "shall use or attempt to use official position or office to obtain financial gain."

Russell said it makes no difference that Miller is a part-time contract employee, or that, as he told The Register-Guard, he never pushed the product on students and only sold it at a discount, clearing no profit.

"(State law) is pretty clear that a person, even a part-time employee or even a volunteer, can't use their position in any way that would be a conflict of interest," Russell said.

Russell said he's convinced Miller believed he was doing no wrong, and McIver noted that, in most if not all cases, parents knew their sons were obtaining the supplement.

Miller, a former University of Oregon quarterback who went on to a 10-year career in the NFL, didn't respond to phone messages seeking comment Wednesday.

Russell said the district's activities and athletic director, Pat Latimer, is researching policy options and checking with other school districts in Oregon and elsewhere to see how - and whether - they deal with supplement use by student athletes.

"I think we're clearly going to look at a policy," Russell said. "Clearly we want to not be in a position of promoting use of nutritional supplements."

Russell acknowledged that it may be difficult to come up with policy language, given the multitude of easily available products aimed at boosting health or fitness. Miller and others say that creatine supplements are really no different from vitamins or protein drinks.

While the full school board hasn't met since the article appeared, board Chairwoman Beth Gerot and Vice Chairwoman Virginia Thompson discussed the matter with Russell on Monday at a regularly scheduled meeting.

Gerot said she was startled to learn what Miller was doing at South Eugene. He shouldn't have been selling any sort of product to his students, she said.

She also disapproves of youngsters taking supplements, and said both she and Thompson agreed they'd like to see a draft policy on supplement use.

"I think it's unfortunate because high school sports are supposed to be fun and a learning experience for students, and this kind of takes it to a level of competition that I'm not sure is healthy," she said.