Dick Pound has a question he’d like asked when NFL executives take their turn today before a congressional panel investigating steroids.

“If I were a member of the panel I’d be saying, ‘Tell me how it is, with everybody knowing things are going on, why can’t you catch anybody?”‘ said Pound, who heads the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Good question.

After all, if 9-year-old girls are taking steroids just to look good, what are the odds the behemoths in the NFL are juiced?

Probably pretty good, though you wouldn’t know it by the handful of players who have been caught by a drug-testing system the league heralds as the toughest in professional sports.

That’s an easy claim to make, of course, since baseball had to be dragged kicking and screaming into testing for steroids and the NBA gives only a cursory test in preseason to its players.

Give the NFL some credit for being the first league to test for performance-enhancing drugs and for actually having penalties in place for those who get caught. But the league began testing 15 years ago, and since that time has suspended only 44 players for four games at a time for testing positive.

During the same period, football players have grown in ways that nature and good diets can’t fully explain. From a handful of 300-pounders 15 years ago, an unofficial check of NFL rosters at the end of last season turned up 455 players listed at 300 pounds or more.

These players aren’t just bigger. They’re also stronger and quicker, qualities that don’t come from merely getting in line for seconds at the Shoney’s buffet.

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue knows that. He also understands that public opinion is now driving the steroid issue, and that now is not the time to do a Bud Selig and deny there is a problem.

That’s why he plans to tell the Government Reform Committee today that the league will increase the number of times a player can be randomly tested from two to six, add items to the list of banned substances, and begin stricter testing for testosterone.

Tagliabue wants to be seen as being ahead of the curve, but the reality of it is he didn’t have much choice. In announcing the hearing, Rep. Henry Waxman said ominously that “new information has called into question the effectiveness of the NFL drug policy.”

Pound, who would like all professional leagues to adopt the same worldwide standards used — and used effectively — by WADA to catch cheaters in Olympic sports, said his agency has tried unsuccessfully to get the NFL and other leagues to use its proven system

“Basically, it’s like all pro sports,” Pound said. “First of all, they say they don’t have a problem. Then they say even though we don’t have a problem it’s under control. Third, they say even if they wanted to do something they can’t because of collective bargaining agreements.”

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to show the NFL does have a problem that goes beyond its bust of four Oakland Raiders in 2003 for testing positive for THG, the designer steroid at the center of the BALCO scandal.

In the last few weeks alone, a “60 Minutes Wednesday” report said a South Carolina doctor wrote steroid prescriptions for three players on the Carolina Panthers in 2003, and Northwestern defensive tackle Luis Castillo admitted to using androstenedione to get ready for February’s NFL draft combine.

New Orleans Saints coach Jim Haslett also said he used steroids as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the early 1980s, a time he said steroid use was rampant because there was no testing and steroids weren’t illegal.

There is testing now, but who is getting caught? Sure, the NFL suspends an average of three players a year. But, at the same time, up to 7 percent of middle-school girls say they have used steroids to look or play better.

Anyone really think a higher percentage of schoolgirls use steroids than NFL players?

Those are the kind of numbers that drew the attention of politicians. And that’s why the NFL will try to look proactive in a hearing that will be a lot less entertaining than baseball’s last month.

Mark McGwire won’t be there to talk about the future. Sammy Sosa won’t be looking for his translation book, and Curt Schilling won’t be up on his soapbox.

There’s also no football version of Jose Canseco. The best the committee could come up with was Steve Courson, who said he suffered a heart attack from using steroids when he played a quarter-century ago for the Steelers.

Still, what comes out may be more important. Public pressure is finally mounting on sports leagues to clean up their act, with Congress ready to do something if the leagues don’t.

“I think they’re more serious this time,” said Pound, a Canadian. “The organizations that are dismissing this as a whim of the moment are making a mistake.

“It’s like your president said: ‘Clean this up, or we’ll find someone to clean it up for you.”‘