Barry Voorhees history.... circa 1992
Playing a Dangerous Game : Drugs: Former Cal State Northridge player is a convicted cocaine dealer who used steroids. Now he is playing for Barcelona of the WLAF, hoping for another NFL opportunityMarch 18, 1992 by MIKE HISERMAN and THERESA MUNOZ | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
A muscle-bound, 6-foot-5, 300-pound professional football player addresses the people of Shasta County with a familiar, just-say-no message, reciting the details with emotion and conviction.
He tells of a close friend who died when he smashed his car into the back of a truck after an all-night cocaine binge, and of his own father dying at 46, his life cut short by liquor and cigarettes.
Barry Voorhees, a hometown hero from Redding, even reveals that he experimented with steroids.
"I took steroids, and it was a mistake," he said.
What Voorhees does not say is that he is a convicted cocaine dealer out on bail awaiting his appeal; that he twice was arrested for drug trafficking in the fall of 1989, about the same time he was earning all-conference honors as a senior offensive lineman for Cal State Northridge.
Law-enforcement reports portray Voorhees as a man who sold a variety of illegal drugs to accumulate a small empire, including real estate and several expensive vehicles.
The judge who sentenced Voorhees to four years in prison on Dec. 17, 1990, described him as a "giant dope dealer," one who ran a "six-figure" business and someone who admitted making armed deliveries of cocaine for an unidentified Colombian connection.
In a court declaration by Walter F. Jekot, a West Los Angeles physician who has been indicted on 27 counts of illegally distributing steroids, Voorhees is accused of exchanging promises of a homosexual relationship for steroids. Voorhees denies there was a sexual relationship.
Voorhees, 28, was an informant in a federal investigation of the doctor, whose patients also include former Raider star Lyle Alzado and Dallas Cowboy defensive lineman Danny Noonan.
All that aside, Voorhees is preparing to begin his second season as a starter for the Barcelona Dragons of the World League of American Football. Barcelona played its first exhibition game of the season last Thursday in Orlando, Fla., then left for Europe the next day.
But Voorhees may be back any day.
He has been subpoenaed to testify at Jekot's trial, which is set to begin April 7 in federal court in Los Angeles. And he could also be sent to prison if his appeal is rejected.
Since his conviction, Voorhees has navigated a tenuous path, just as he did during college when he balanced two budding careers: one as a football player, the other as a peddler of cocaine, speed, the hallucinogenic drug Ecstasy, marijuana, human-growth hormone and steroids.
In the meantime, he attempts to dismiss his past.
Reached at the Dragons' training camp in Orlando, Voorhees at first denied his criminal record, then changed his mind, saying: "All of that happened a long time ago. Each day of my life since then I've been trying to sweep it under the rug and let it go by."
