Jeff Novitzky (born December 15, 1967) is the current Senior Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance for the
UFC
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...
, the world's largest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. He previously served as a special agent for the
Food and Drug Administration
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...
, investigating the use of steroids in professional sports. Before April 2008 he was a
special agent for the
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
who investigated the use of steroids for over five years. Novitzky's work has been credited with "changing the face of sports."
Early life and education
Novitzky grew up in
Burlingame, California
Burlingame () is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame and is known for its numerous eucalyp ...
and graduated from
Mills High School
Mills High School is a public high school in Millbrae, California, one of seven in the San Mateo Union High School District.
Mills was established in 1958. Mills High School has been named a California Distinguished School three times (1988, 199 ...
in
Millbrae
Millbrae is a city located in northern San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County, California, United States. To its northeast is San Francisco International Airport, San Bruno, California, San Bruno is on its northwest, and Burlingame, Cal ...
, California, in 1986.
While at Mills High School, Novitzky high jumped 7-feet, still the only high school athlete in San Mateo County history to achieve the 7-foot mark. Novitzky was the Peninsula Athletic League's (PAL's) Most Valuable Player in boys basketball in 1986. After graduating from Mills High School, Novitzky enrolled at the
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory.
T ...
on a track and field scholarship,
before transferring to
Skyline College
Skyline College is a public community college in San Bruno, California. It is one of three comprehensive community colleges in the San Mateo County Community College District. It was opened in 1969.
Skyline College claims an annual population of ...
to continue his basketball career. Novitzky played two seasons of basketball at Skyline but just one game in his second season due to injuries. In 1989, Novitzky transferred to
San Jose State University
San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...
on a basketball scholarship. For the
San Jose State Spartans
The San Jose State Spartans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent San José State University. SJSU sports teams compete in the Mountain West Conference (MW) at the NCAA Division I level, with football competing in the Football B ...
, Novitzky played two games as a reserve forward in the 1989–90 season,
Stan Morrison
Stanley Mack Morrison (born October 15, 1939) is an American retired college basketball coach and athletic director. He was head men's basketball coach at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California from 1972 to 1979, University of So ...
's first as head coach. Again, injuries limited Novitzky's playing time to those two games.
Novitzky graduated from San Jose State in 1992 with a degree in accounting.
Investigations
Novitzky first gained public notoriety during his role as a federal agent for the
IRS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory tax ...
. In a 2002 investigation which came to be known as the
BALCO scandal
The BALCO scandal was a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) was a San Francisco Bay Area business which supplied anabolic steroids to profes ...
, Novitzky was the lead investigative special agent for a raid on a San Francisco Bay Area laboratory co-operative that was supplying banned substances to dozens of elite professional athletes. The investigation is recognized as the world's most well known performance enhancing drug scandal in sports history. The resulting fallout implicated many well-known athletes in cheating at various high level competitions including
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
(MLB) and the
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
. Notable athletes involved included
Marion Jones
Marion Lois Jones (born October 12, 1975), also known as Marion Jones-Thompson, is an American former world champion track and field athlete and former professional basketball player. She won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the 200 ...
,
Tim Montgomery
Timothy Montgomery (born January 28, 1975) is an American former track sprinter who specialized in the 100-meter dash. In 2005, he was stripped of his records—including a now-void men's 100-meter world record of 9.78 seconds set in 2002—a ...
,
Barry Bonds
Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is an American former professional baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Bonds was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986 to 1992 and the San Francisco Giants f ...
,
Bill Romanowski
William Thomas Romanowski (born April 2, 1966) is a former American football linebacker who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons. Nicknamed "Romo" and "RomoCop", he spent the majority of his career with the San Francisco 4 ...
, and
Jason Giambi
Jason Gilbert Giambi (; born January 8, 1971) is an American former professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter. In his Major League Baseball (MLB) career, which began in 1995, Giambi played for the Oakland Athletics, New York Yank ...
.
Novitzky was the lead special agent on the federal perjury trial of Barry Bonds. The trial detailed the extensive history of Bonds' athletic performance enhancing drug use during his quest for the two most hallowed records in American professional sports, the single season and all-time home run marks
On May 20, 2010, the ''
New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'' reported that Novitzky was involved in an investigation into performance enhancing drug use on
Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong (''né'' Gunderson; born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road bicycle racing, road racing cyclist. Regarded as a sports icon for winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 Tour de ...
's
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
teams, and that Armstrong's former teammate
Floyd Landis
Floyd Landis (born October 14, 1975) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. He finished first at the 2006 Tour de France, and would have been the third non-European winner in the event's history, but was disqualified after test ...
was cooperating with the investigation.
In a December 2018 UFC press conference, Novitzky referred to Armstrong as "one of the biggest frauds and cheats in professional sport history." Previously,
Marion Jones
Marion Lois Jones (born October 12, 1975), also known as Marion Jones-Thompson, is an American former world champion track and field athlete and former professional basketball player. She won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the 200 ...
, a track and field Olympian winner, pleaded guilty in October 2007 to
making false statements
Making false statements () is the common name for the United States federal process crime laid out in Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which generally prohibits knowingly and willfully making false or fraudulent statements, or ...
to Novitzky.
The bulk of the names provided in the
Mitchell Report
The ''Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball'', informally known as the Mitchell Report, is the res ...
about doping in Major League Baseball were provided by Radomski and Brian MacNamee, a personal trainer for MLB pitcher Roger Clemens, both of whom Novitzky persuaded to talk to Senator Mitchell and his staff.
In his book ''The Secret Race'', former professional cyclist
Tyler Hamilton
Tyler Hamilton (born March 1, 1971) is an American former professional road bicycle racer. He is the only American rider to win one of the five Monuments of cycling, taking Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2003. Hamilton became a professional cycli ...
wrote that Novitzky drove a "bulldozer" through the sport of cycling in uncovering details about the pervasive use of performance enhancing drugs.
Novitzky has been compared to famed U.S. Treasury Department investigator
Elliott Ness
Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago. He was the leader of a team of law enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables. H ...
.
Starting in April 2015, Novitzky began working for the
UFC
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...
as their Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance. Within this role at the UFC, Novitzky oversees all anti-doping efforts, as well as other athlete related health and performance initiatives within the organization. The UFC's program is widely recognized as the most comprehensive anti-doping program in professional sports. In both 2016 and 2019, Novitzky was nominated for the category "Leading Man" at the World MMA Awards, awarded to the leading industry executive. In July 2019, Novitzky was promoted by the UFC to Senior Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance.
Criticism
Novitzky has been criticized by certain defendants in steroid-related cases as being biased and unfair.
Novitzky, in multiple cross examinations, including during the federal perjury investigation of
Roger Clemens
William Roger Clemens (born August 4, 1962), nicknamed "Rocket", is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily with the Boston Red Sox. Clemens was one of the most dominant pi ...
, has been a credible government witness.
''The Joe Rogan Experience''
Novitzky has appeared as a guest on ''
The Joe Rogan Experience
''The Joe Rogan Experience'' is a podcast hosted by American comedian, presenter, and UFC color commentator Joe Rogan. It launched on December 24, 2009, on YouTube by Rogan and comedian Brian Redban, who was its sole co-host and producer until ...
'' podcast on three separate occasions. It was
Brendan Schaub
Brendan Peter Schaub (born March 18, 1983) is an American podcast host, former professional mixed martial arts, mixed martial artist, and stand-up comedian. He is the host of ''The Fighter and the Kid'' podcast, the ''Below the Belt with Brend ...
who coined Novitzky's nickname, "The Golden Snitch."
''Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson''
In 2019, Novitzky appeared as a guest on
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is cons ...
's podcast ''Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson''.
Tyson hailed Novitzky for his contribution to keeping the combat sports community clean. In reference to Novitzky's nickname, "The Golden Snitch", Tyson stated ''“No, that’s not a golden snitch. He is a discoverer of people that are doing devilish and wicked things. People that are hurting people physically.”''
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Novitzky, Jeff
1967 births
Drugs in sport in the United States
Internal Revenue Service people
Living people
Food and Drug Administration people
University of Arizona alumni
San Jose State Spartans men's basketball players
People from Burlingame, California