Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, sat next to Don Fehr, his baseball counterpart, at a lawyers' symposium in Phoenix last weekend.

Fehr leaned over and asked Upshaw a few questions about baseball's newest hot topic -- steroids. Baseball doesn't test. Pro football has the most extensive testing for drugs and steroids among the major sports. So, in the short time they had together, Upshaw shared some history lessons about stern policies that have been in place for more than a decade and are being refined by the day.

As he sat there, Upshaw's mind flashed back. The voices of debate coming from modern-day baseball players sounded so familiar. Barry Bonds says it's nobody's business what players do with their bodies. Ken Camaniti says half the baseball players take steroids. Jose Canseco says it's 85 percent. Baseball drums beat to the tune of possible strike.

Intellectually, NFL players went through that debate in the late 1980s. In the end, players accepted testing because it benefited the masses more than the individual.

"When (late commissioner) Pete Rozelle implemented steroid testing, we fought it," Upshaw said. "Then we went around and talked to players and they told us they wanted us to stop the use of steroids. Their position was, 'If the guy across from me is using it, then it's forcing me to use. I don't want to do that.' "

In 1987, the NFL started testing. Players fought. But, after a strike and a five-year legal fight over collective bargaining agreement, the NFLPA allowed the league to not only test, but to suspend players four games for first-time violations.

"I'm hearing the same things now from baseball that were being said when we were fighting it when they implemented it," Upshaw said. "It was the right thing to do. It was the responsible thing to do even though it wasn't popular to some. The groundswell was that the only way to prove that the sport was clean was to test."

But establishing a system isn't that easy. Owners might want to implement testing. But it's the players' right to fight it. They are trading away a civil liberty. It wasn't easy for the NFLPA. It may not happen in baseball. But the mature resolution in the NFL ended up being an acceptance of testing, and the only way a system can work is if the players accept it.

In the NFL, players felt strong enough about the evils of steroids that the penalties are more severe against steroids than street drugs. Those who test positive for street drugs receive counseling first and help if needed. It almost takes three violations to result in fines and suspensions.

	“	When (late commissioner) Pete Rozelle implemented steroid testing, we fought it. Then we went around and talked to players and they told us they wanted us to stop the use of steroids. Their position was, 'If the guy across from me is using it, then it's forcing me to use. I don't want to do that.' ”
		— Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association

For steroids, it's one offense and you're penalized four games. Appeals are possible but they usually aren't successful. Thirty substances are listed as banned, and the list grows each year. Ephedrine, a dietary supplement, will be added July 1.

"And more will be added in the future," Upshaw promised.

Here's why NFL players are willing to subject themselves to fines that could total hundreds of thousands of the dollars:

Football is a competitive sport, and the more competitive the body, the better the player. That will never change. Every player is looking for an edge. In the 1970s, several of the Steelers' offensive linemen spent their idle time in a weight room in the basement of a restaurant. They lifted. They took anabolic steroids. Suddenly, their 220-pound bodies became 260-pound bodies. It was a time that steroids were legal and no one knew the effects.

Look at the effects. Former Steelers guard Steve Courson remains on the list of heart transplant candidates because of how chemicals damaged his body. Hall of Fame center Mike Webster developed demons that at times have left him homeless. As steroid use increased, the damage grew. Former Raiders and Browns defensive lineman Lyle Alzado may have been the most publicized story of an athlete who died from the effects of steroids abuse through the years.

Testing won't stop players from trying to gain that edge, but penalties level the playing field. Individuals will push the limits of any performance-enhancing drug policy. No sport will be completely clean because there is too much money. It's the performance enhancing aspect of drugs that NFL players realized can't be tolerated.

Players know some players will cheat. But with testing, they know that most players won't. They don't have to join in this dangerous club to stay in the league.

Weaning the NFL of steroids hasn't been pretty. In the late 1980s, there was a two- or three-year cycle were big bodies shrank and and the injured-reserve list expanded. It wasn't pretty in the short term, but it forced players to build their bodies in a more natural fashion.

"The bodies keep getting bigger, but now diet and training figure into all of it," Upshaw said. "You look at guys like Leonard Davis in Arizona and he's just big and strong. His body fat may be the 12- to 16-percent range. He's just naturally big."

Upshaw remembers the sights of a couple of scouting combines in the late 1980s after the NFL and NCAA started testing. "You ended up seeing a group of guys at the combine who were shrinking," Upshaw said.

Hearing the baseball talk about fighting steroid testing sounds almost prehistoric. Even in the NFL, a small percentage of players will cheat, but the testing system has been installed long enough that the NFL can try to keep up with the changes in the ways players try to beat it.

For the NFLPA to accept that a substance is considered performance enhancing or dangerous, it needs proof. If the proof is there, it will add the substance to the banned list. Example -- ephedrine.

"Last year, we had an unusually hot summer," Upshaw said. "Ephedrine is a supplement that helps with weight loss, but it dehydrates a person. In extra heat, you have tremendous loss of fluids. Your heart rate increases. You can have seizures."

The system's not perfect. There is growing concern about caffeine supplements that cause heart rates to jump before games. Studies will continue to find tests for human growth hormones, which can rapidly increase body mass and muscles in athletes. The NFLPA will accept tests on things determined to be masking agents.

To take it a step further, they won't let players be paid for endorsements for companies that sell banned substances. Bills receiver Eric Moulds has been challenged for being a spokesperson for Muscle-Tech Research and Development Inc., which makes ephedra and Androstenediol.

This is not to say the NFL and its players have a perfect system. Players who want to cheat will cheat. Everyone realizes that. It's like speeding. Putting a sign that limits a car to 55 miles per hour isn't going to stop drivers from doing 60. But the sign acts as a deterrent enough that those who want to drive the legal, safe limit don't have to rev their engines or be forced off the road.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.