1963: After going 4-10 the previous season, San Diego Chargers coach Sid Gillman institutes a tough summer workout program: weightlifting, two-a-days, and... steroids. Players who refused to take them were fined $50. They won the AFL Championship that season.

Frustrated by the team's 4-10 record in 1962, San Diego Chargers Coach Sid Gillman instituted a tough five-week off-season summer camp at a dusty ranch called Rough Acres about 70 miles east of San Diego.   Under the blazing sun, the players worked out twice a day, scrimmaged, ate five high-protein meals a day, and lifted weights.   And three times a day they were given a little pink pill, called Dianabol (methandrostenolone). It's an androgen and anabolic steroid originally developed by Ciba Pharmaceuticals in 1955. At the time it wasn't a banned substance.  

"It was like the Wild, Wild West. Everything went. There was speed, painkillers, steroids." -- Chargers guard Walt Sweeney   Individual players from other teams have admitted they also experimented with steroids at the time. But no one did it like the Chargers in 1963.   Alvin Roy, the team's strength coach, told the players he had learned about the pills from "those Rooskies" when he was a trainer for the U.S. Olympics. (Soviet weightlifters won five out of seven gold medals during the 1960 Olympics.) He told the players it would help them "assimilate protein."   Quarterback John Hadl said within a month the linemen "started looking like Popeye."   Some of the players, including Hadl and wide receiver Lance Alworth, said they didn't take the pills because they worried bulking up would be counterproductive. Hadl said the team looked the other way when it came to lean-build skill-position players. But not linemen or tight ends. Walt Sweeney, a rookie lineman, said he was told if he didn't take the pills he'd be fined $50 a day.   Players said at first they didn't think the pills were doing anything. But as the summer went on, the effect on their bodies was noticeable.

"It was probably at the end of the camp, people were talking: 'Have you noticed anything?' Yeah, I noticed. The strength was there." -- Chargers lineman Pat Shea   But the pills were having other effects as well. Shea's wife told him he was "a different person," irritable and impatient.   Tight end Dave Kocourek went to his doctor and told him he was taking Dianabol. His doctor was shocked, telling Kocourek that the pills could lead to permanent bone damage, liver damage, heart damage, and testicle shrinkage. Kocourek told Ron Mix -- an offensive tackle who was a team captain and later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame -- about what his doctor said.   "Now comes the obligatory joke. The other three we could live with. But the last -- no!" -- Lineman Ron Mix   Mix went to the coaches and expressed his concerns, handing them some literature about the possible side effects.   Sweeney said Gillman looked at the papers, then dismissively threw them away, saying: "What do these guys know? They don't know anything about football. They're doctors."   But the players were worried. When the regular season was about to begin, Mix again objected to the pills. The team finally relented, saying if they didn't want to take them, they didn't have to. Most, but not all, stopped taking them, according to Mix.   Did the steroids work? Experts are divided. Some say the dosage (5 mg per pill) was too low to provide much benefit, and that the regime ended too soon for it to have a lasting effect. Others believe the added strength and stamina helped the players well into the regular season. And of course, some of the players did continue taking the team-supplied steroids all season long.

In any event, the Chargers went from 4-10 in 1962 to 11-3 in 1963, and won the AFL Championship, 51-10.   Jim Van Deusen, who was hired as San Diego's athletic trainer after the 1963 season, said the pills were again distributed in 1964 and, while not mandatory this time, were strongly encouraged by the coaches. At the end of the 1964 season, Van Deusen told Gillman they should stop encouraging the players to take the pills. Gillman agreed, but steroids and amphetamines continued to be available to whoever wanted them.   In 1969, a Chargers defensive lineman named Houston Ridge had a career-ending injury and sued the team, claiming the steroids and amphetamines had given him a propensity for injuries. The team settled for $265,000.   Steroids were banned by the NFL beginning with the 1987 season.   According to an ESPN Outside the Lines story, of the 38 men who were on the Chargers in 1963, 10 were dead by 2009, at an average age of 53.5. Don Norton, who said he added 25 pounds of muscle in a month, had a heart attack at 39 and died at 59 from complications during open-heart surgery.   Roy, the mastermind behind the Chargers' steroid regime, died in 1979 at age 59. He is in the USA Strength & Conditioning Coaches Hall of Fame, and the National Strength and Conditioning Association gives out the NSCA Alvin Roy Award for Career Excellence.