Report of Drugs in Locker Room Denied by Reseda

Officials at Reseda High denied Tuesday a published report made by a former Dorsey High football player who said he saw drugs in the Reseda locker room after a game last season.

Marlon Rice, now a varsity player at Washington High, was quoted as saying drugs were “on the floor, all laid out, steroids, Valium, needles . . .” by sports columnist Diane K. Shah in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

Reseda football Coach Joel Schaeffer discounted Rice’s story. “All I can say is that is erroneous information,” Schaeffer said. “We haven’t played Dorsey in five years.”

The schools have not met in football since 1981. Reseda last played Washington in 1976.

Dimitri Vadetsky, assistant principal in charge of athletics at Reseda, said that when teams play at Reseda they come in uniform and are escorted to a room away from the home team’s locker room before the game. After the game, the visiting team returns to that room and then heads for the bus. “There is no intermingling at all,” he said.

Rice could not be reached for comment.