Willingham Is Vindicated by Early Success

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 15, 2007

About three years ago, I began to carry around an imaginary college football scoreboard. It is a colossal contraption with all sorts of facts, figures and notations that go beyond the mere statistics of a game.

Notre Dame-Charlie Weis is the “team” on one side of the scoreboard; Washington-Tyrone Willingham is on the other. I keep weekly and season-to-season updates.

Today the scoreboard reads Notre Dame-Weis, 0-2; Washington-Willingham, 2-0.

I began keeping score on the imaginary board in 2004 after Willingham was unceremoniously, and unfairly, jettisoned as the Notre Dame head football coach, three days after an embarrassing road loss to Southern California.

In the press box that evening, Notre Dame faces were understandably red with humiliation as No. 1 U.S.C. routed the Irish, 41-10. It was the fifth loss by 30 points or more in Willingham’s three seasons.

After an outstanding first year was followed by a losing season, Willingham had been under fire from rabid Notre Dame alumni. So on Nov. 30, 2004, Willingham, Notre Dame’s first African-American head coach in any sport, was fired. Weis was hired from the New England Patriots a month later amid toasts and platitudes, and I’ve been keeping score ever since.

Even though nearly three years have come and gone, Willingham’s tenure at Notre Dame is frequently mentioned. The nature of Willingham’s firing and Weis’s hiring says a lot about standards and double standards and about the enduring unlevel playing field for African Americans in sports and beyond.

Weis was named the 28th head football coach in Notre Dame history in December 2004 when he agreed to a six-year contract worth a reported $2 million a year.

Weis, unlike Willingham, has always been a news media favorite, with his one-liners and zingers. He was a Notre Dame student, loved Notre Dame and bled Notre Dame, but the Irish really wanted Urban Meyer.

In Weis’s first season, the program improved significantly — with Willingham’s players. You can argue that Weis did a better job of coaching Willingham’s players; I like to think they were older and wiser. Midway through the first season of his six-year contract, Weis signed a new contract: a 10-year deal worth a reported $30 million to $40 million.

The common wisdom is that Weis got the contract on the strength a 5-2 record and Notre Dame’s close loss to a great U.S.C. team. There was also the misguided belief that Weis might run off to the N.F.L. I imagine that the same influential forces behind Willingham’s departure felt they’d better lock up their resident genius.

Newsflash: There are no geniuses in this business, only great players. There is smoke and mirrors, and there are video cameras. No geniuses.

Notre Dame has lost four consecutive games by at least 20 points, going back to last season when they were routed by U.S.C. and Louisiana State. The 2007 Irish have not scored an offensive touchdown and could be looking at 0-3 after today’s game at Michigan.

This season Weis is playing with his own players. He recruited quarterback Jimmy Clausen, the high school all-American, and apparently is going to stick with him through thick or thin.

In Seattle this afternoon, Willingham continues to ride his high school all-American quarterback, Jake Locker. Locker, a redshirt freshman, has led Washington to its first 2-0 start since the 2001 season.

Here are a couple notes to put on the imaginary scoreboard:

¶A fourth season should be mandatory for any head football coach at the Division I level. Every coach needs four seasons, at the very least, to coach the classes he inherited and bring along the players he recruited.

¶When a university finds a gem of a coach like Willingham, keep him. The cost of losing is high. Fishing for talent these days requires “feel” and “touch.” Not looking far enough, wide enough or deep enough for talent, choosing the safe and familiar, is not good business; eventually you will pay.

¶Willingham should not be the last African-American head football coach Notre Dame seriously considers — or hires.

¶Finally, the great thing about football is that results don’t lie. From South Bend to Seattle, 0-2 is 0-2; 2-0 is 2-0.

Washington faces a tremendous challenge against Ohio State this afternoon, and Willingham knows how quickly things can change.

Notre Dame could find its rhythm today and defeat Michigan; Ohio State could easily burst Washington’s bubble. Last season Washington went into October with a 4-1 record, including an upset victory over U.C.L.A. The Huskies lost their next six games and ended up 5-7.

That’s why today is an early-season day of reckoning for Notre Dame-Charlie Weis, and Washington-Tyrone Willingham.

Make no mistake: I’ll be scoreboard watching this afternoon.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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From Championship Years to Tarnish on Belichick

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 14, 2007

I can hear it now, the chorus of Patriots haters shouting: “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I knew them guys were cheating.”

The justified cynicism will come forth now that N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell has levied a hefty penalty — a $500,000 fine for Coach Bill Belichick, a $250,000 fine for the team and the loss of draft picks to be determined — for videotaping the Jets’ signals.

That’s right, boys and girls: Santa Claus cheats.

Goodell said that because the video was seized in the first quarter Sunday, he did not believe it affected the game. But knowing Belichick, the video was not for that game, anyway, but for an encounter later in the season.

In the wake of the commissioner’s stiff penalty against the Patriots, announced last night, claims that the Patriots’ successes were counterfeit, sadly, have to be considered.

Goodell came down hard, and he should have. In fact, he should have come down harder, given how he has leveled players like Pacman Jones, Tank Williams and Michael Vick. What New England did cuts to the integrity of the game; what those players did makes the game look seamy, but it does not impact our faith that the game is being played on a level playing field.

Given the commissioner’s harsh action against players who have transgressed off the field, I would have suspended a head coach whose actions strike at the integrity of the game. I would have liked to have seen Belichick suspended and the Patriots stripped of a first- and third-round pick. Under the current penalty, the Patriots only forfeit their first-round pick in 2008 if they make the playoffs.

Why the sudden mercy? Because Belichick’s a coach? When the league suspended the Cowboys’ quarterback coach, Wade Wilson, for five games for buying human growth hormone, Wilson said he was told by Goodell that he held authority figures in higher regard than the players. Goodell said in a statement yesterday that he considered a suspension for Belichick but thought the fines and the loss of draft choices was more effective.

Yesterday’s ruling confirms that the Patriots, held up by the news media as the model of how to run a franchise, had a little bit of help along the way. They cheated. So, is the essence of Belichick’s genius: the X’s and O’s, or the hidden cameras?

In any event, the second-guessing has already started. On Wednesday, Hines Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ star receiver, told reporters that he had always been suspicious of the Patriots and that the Patriots might have cheated during the American Football Conference championship game of the 2001 season.

“Oh, they knew,” Ward said. “They were calling our stuff out. They knew, especially that first championship game here at Heinz Field. They knew a lot of our calls."

Maybe. Maybe not. On the one hand, I feel about the camera scandal the way I feel about drugs and great home run hitters: Drugs don’t help eye-hand coordination, but drugs do help.

Similarly, for all of the cameras and improperly taped hand signals, a team still must execute — and the Patriots have.

But a little extra, ill-gotten information in the hands of a coach like Belichick goes a long, long way.

The next question is, how widespread is this?

The former Steelers running backs coach Dick Hoak recently told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the Steelers once received a suspicious videotape by mistake from an opposing team during a routine tape exchange. The tape focused on a coach making hand signals from the sideline. Hoak said the Steelers did not report the tape to the N.F.L.

Now you wonder: If the Patriots, the N.F.L.’s standard bearer, stooped to cheating, is the practice widespread? I’m curious to hear what Belichick says about this. Is it widespread and the Patriots simply got caught?

Is every team cheating? Is everyone out there trying to steal signs? Does every team have a camera operator slithering around? I doubt it. At least the cheats were caught.

At one level, I’m tempted to pass this off as the pros just trying to get an edge. Hey, everybody tries to get an edge: Players continue to use H.G.H., and some still use steroids. There are tests in place to catch some of those cheats, although the league does not currently test for H.G.H. The N.F.L. more or less operates on an honor system of sorts when it came to its head coaches because head coaches know how difficult it is to get a W in their league.

On the other hand, an edge in the hands of a coach like Belichick is more than an edge. It’s an ax. My mother used to famously say, “Cheaters never prosper.”

Now, we’re left to wonder.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Some Clues to the Future Emerge From Week 1

Jets Coach Eric Mangini, right, had little to say
about Chad Pennington’s ankle sprain Sunday.
Photo: Barton Silverman/The New York Times

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 11, 2007

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y.

In New York City, where the news media specializes in making mountains out of mole hills, the area’s two professional football teams — the Jets and Giants — have quarterback issues right out of the box.

The Giants’ Eli Manning, playing perhaps the best game of his career against Dallas on Sunday, sustained a right shoulder injury that may force him to miss a start.

The Jets face a more delicate problem: Chad Pennington, the 31-year-old quarterback who has battled back from an assortment of shoulder and arm injuries, was temporarily knocked out of Sunday’s 38-14 loss to the New England Patriots with a high ankle sprain. Pennington returned to the game, but judging from the nasty reaction of many fans, there seems to be a sense — maybe a consensus — that Pennington is not the one to lead the Jets to the Super Bowl. But who is — Kellen Clemens?

Welcome to Jets/Giants 2007.

The opening of an N.F.L. season is like the first day of school: fresh, new back-to-school-clothes, new classmates, new teachers, the promise of a clean slate. Unlike baseball, basketball and hockey and their marathon seasons, the N.F.L.’s 16-game regular season gives every contest, every quarter and every play great weight.

So while a result in Week 1 is not necessarily a death sentence or a ticket to the Super Bowl, you can draw some general conclusions from the first day of school.

If you’re an Oakland Raiders fan, you can look at the season-opening loss to Detroit and safely predict another disappointing season. Perhaps Raiders fans should petition the image-conscious commissioner, Roger Goodell, to take the reins from Al Davis, the Raiders’ managing general partner, and have the N.F.L. operate Oakland as a trust until the league finds a suitable owner.

Similarly, I could fully understand Atlanta Falcons fans who watched a 24-7 loss to Minnesota petitioning United States District Judge Henry E. Hudson to sentence Michael Vick as harshly as he pleases — if he will just let him play for the Falcons on Sundays.

What Jets fans should take away from Week 1 is that the Jets and Patriots are still oceans apart. When the Patriots lost receiver Deion Branch, Tom Brady complained. The franchise then gave him Randy Moss.

Pete Kendall, the Jets’ former valuable veteran guard, wanted a million dollars more. The franchise traded him, and if Sunday is any indication, there is no replacement in view.

A rejuvenated Moss treated the Jets’ secondary like a collection of schoolboys. The Patriots treated the Jets the way the Patriots usually treat the Jets: like little brothers who needed to be reminded who was still the boss.

Moss gives the Patriots personality and reminds Jets fans that their team really doesn’t have one. Organizations like New England, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and, recently, San Diego, have mastered the art of getting players who fit into their respective identities.

The Jets are a franchise in search — for the last 38 years — of an identity.

Without a Curtis Martin, there is no offensive player who terrifies the opposition; no one who keeps coordinators awake trying to figure out “how do we stop this guy?”

Coach Eric Mangini’s message after Sunday’s dismal loss was to change the team’s focus as rapidly as possible. “It’s never about what happened,” he said. “It’s about how you respond to what happened. It’s about the adversity; it’s how you respond to the adversity.”

Jets fans don’t respond so well. Never have.

When Pennington was injured in the third quarter, a large number of moronic Jets fans actually cheered, validating arguments in some quarters that football fans — witnesses to an absolutely brutal sport — are only a few steps removed from devotees of animal fights.

Who would cheer a player’s injury?

Pennington’s replacement, Kellen Clemens, said yesterday that he was flabbergasted by what he heard.

“For anybody who knows Chad, there should be nothing but concern for him at that moment,” he said.

Clemens said his wife did not notice that he was going into the game but cried for Pennington. “She was crying because he was hurt,” he said.

Someone quipped, “Are you sure she wasn’t crying because you were going in?”

Clemens laughed.

You can laugh in early September with 15 games to go because the end of an N.F.L. season rarely looks like the beginning.

But if the Giats lose Eli Manning and the Jets lose Chad Pennington for any significant time, pro football season in New York will be a catastrophe.

And that’s no hype.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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It Is Time for Vick’s Deeds to Speak for Him

Atlanta Coach Bobby Petrino

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 7, 2007

Flowery Branch, Ga.

Alge Crumpler sat in a small office inside the Atlanta Falcons’ training facility earlier this week, talking about his friend and teammate, the fallen Falcon, quarterback Michael Vick.

Crumpler, Atlanta’s tight end, said he spoke with Vick several times a week — not so much about football, but about life. Crumpler passes along scripture passages from his mother, and well wishes from teammates. The last time they spoke, Crumpler said, they joked about playing the Madden NFL 08 video game online. But even that was bittersweet: Yesterday, EA Sports pulled Vick from the rosters of Madden NFL 08.

Vick’s fall from grace is stunning, so traumatic that its effect on the team is difficult to measure. Crumpler and his teammates have spent the past several weeks putting this situation into perspective, trying to keep a team that once had lofty aspirations inspired.

Vick and Crumpler were members of the 2001 draft: Vick was the first player taken. Crumpler, taken in the second round, was the 35th player selected. They were going to contend for the Super Bowl together; Crumpler said he could feel it. In fact, Crumpler said he saw it.

“I had a vision that we were going to win the Super Bowl together,” Crumpler said. “I had a vision of winning the Super Bowl, and it was always going to be with Mike. I’ve had that vision since the day we were drafted. I want to still have it, but I just don’t.

•

Would Crumpler ever catch another pass from Vick?

“Not here,” Crumpler said, referring to the Falcons.

“I think Mike is going to be back in the league,” he added, and then said: “I think it’s going to take a lot of ‘show me’ for Mike to get back into the league. It’s going to have to be more than words.”

Everyone has carved out their turf on this issue. Like Crumpler, I feel that Vick should and will return to the N.F.L., as a quarterback. Suggestions to the contrary betray an underlying prejudice that goes far beyond the legal issue at hand. Vick should receive a yearlong sentence for pleading guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy stemming from his connection to dogfighting but should serve no more than six months in jail.

The more intriguing question is how Vick’s fall from grace will affect a city that had become deeply invested in him.

Friends of mine who live in Atlanta say, half-jokingly, that the Falcons are black America’s team. The city has a large African-American population, and a substantial portion of the team’s season-ticket holders are African-Americans.

On the other hand, Atlanta has had an up-and-down relationship with its pro football team, and the fans are largely regarded as fair-weather ones. Right now, the weather is stormy.

The Falcons may have to deal with empty seats this season. Last year, they drew an average of 55,000 fans in two preseason games; this year they drew an average of 40,000.

In many ways, Atlanta’s fans have never stood on solid ground. The Vick episode is simply the latest blow.

Atlanta played its first season in 1966 and didn’t have a winning season until 1971. The Falcons have never had back-to-back winning campaigns, with or without Vick.

•

The Falcons did reach the Super Bowl in the 1998 season but that moment was tarnished when Eugene Robinson, a star safety, was arrested on charges of soliciting a female undercover police officer posing as a prostitute the night before the game. The Falcons lost, 34-19, to the Denver Broncos. The next season they finished a dismal 5-11.

In 2004, Vick led Atlanta to an 11-5 record and the National Football Conference championship game. In 2005, the Falcons finished 8-8. Last season, they finished 7-9.

Before Vick officially pleaded guilty 11 days ago, there was a sense in Atlanta that the African-American community was split down the middle regarding its star quarterback.

Now there’s a resignation in that community that he did something seriously wrong, that he will have to atone for what he did and that in all likelihood he will never play for the Falcons again.

“But if we can win, if we can show some form of competitiveness on a consistent basis, I think we’ll be all right,” Crumpler said.

Vick apologized the day he pleaded guilty. He apologized to the Falcons’ owner, Arthur Blank, to Falcons fans, to the city of Atlanta. But when Vick said that he had also found Jesus, I felt that the time for talking had come to an end. Faced with being hemmed in, as Vick was, one can easily find the Lord.

At this point, Vick has to demonstrate his remorse, not only enunciate it.

As for Crumpler; the new starting quarterback, Joey Harrington; the new coach, Bobby Petrino; and Blank, the challenge is to move on and build a consistent winner, something Atlanta has never had even with Vick running the show.

In Atlanta, this is a time for deeds, not words.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Anticipated Return Must Be More Than Nostalgia Trip

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 3, 2007

Atlanta

There comes a time in every athlete’s career when the individual’s greatness is tested, even called into question. There comes a defining moment when the public demands to know whether the gifts that propelled an individual to stardom are being propped up by memories and warm recollections.

For 35-year-old Pedro Martínez, (left) the day of reckoning comes today in Cincinnati, where he will be making his first start for the Mets since September 2006.

He made his last start here in Atlanta. Martínez lasted two and two-thirds innings, allowing eight hits and seven runs as Atlanta walloped the Mets, 13-1. That’s not the way he wants to be remembered.

A month after he made that start, Martínez had rotator cuff surgery. After an agonizing 11-month rehabilitation, he takes the mound against a tough Reds lineup anchored by Ken Griffey Jr.

For all of the speculation by Mets fans on Pedro’s impact on the reeling Mets, today’s start in Cincinnati is not about his leading the Mets to the promised land. They’ve actually done quite well in his absence. Today’s start is largely about Martínez’s securing his legacy. It’s also about the heart of a pitcher who was brought in to resuscitate a franchise and, indirectly, about a young team that has matured to the point where it can now flourish without its leader.

After yesterday’s game, Martínez conceded that personal pride, while not at the core of his comeback, is certainly part of the discussion. “I want to be the Pedro that people are used to seeing,” he said.

At the same time, Martínez knows that that Pedro is long gone. Some fans are looking for signs of a miraculous recovery that may have him looking like the Pedro of 2004 and 2005. Those days are gone as well. He will be 36 next month, and his body has taken a beating: his toe, his hip, his calf and finally, his shoulder.

“I’ve taken some hits on the way to where I am, and I understand what’s going on with my body and the way things are,” he said. “I’m just trying to make adjustments and help the team as much as I can with what I have.”

Truth is, the Mets don’t need Pedro Martínez the way they needed him in 2005, when he was the centerpiece of Omar Minaya’s rebuilding campaign. The Mets — Minaya — wanted to send a message to their fans and to prospective free agents that the Mets were serious about building a winner.

In this respect, if Martínez never wins another game, he has already run a great race for the Mets, above and beyond victories and strikeouts. Martínez was the magnet. As Minaya said yesterday from his home in New Jersey: “When we signed Pedro Martínez, that was the start. If it wasn’t for Pedro, there would be no Carlos Beltrán, no Carlos Delgado, no Billy Wagner.”

Martínez started what Minaya calls the Mets’ rejuvenation.

The Mets signed Tom Glavine in December 2002, after he enjoyed a great career in Atlanta. Even with Glavine, the Mets stumbled through a 66-95 season in 2003 and a 71-91 finish in 2004. The next season, Pedro’s first with the Mets, the team finished 83-79; last season, they were 97-65.

The Mets are infinitely stronger than they were before Martínez was signed in December 2004. The Mets have fought through oceans of injuries, Martínez among them, and somehow managed to cobble their way through.

“We know we can win and win without him,” Glavine said yesterday. “But there’s no question that if he comes back and pitches well, we’re a better team with him.”

The Mets have matured beyond the original purpose of bringing Martínez to New York.

But Mets fans continue to sell their team short. After a disaster in Philadelphia, there was the general — and typical — losing-streak hysteria. There was general agreement that the three-game series with Atlanta would deepen the Mets’ funk. Atlanta would be the Mets’ Waterloo, turn them into a team gasping for air.

Instead, the Mets stormed into Atlanta and swept a three-game series.

That’s character. With the sweep, the Mets have the National League’s best record (76-60) and lead Philadelphia by four games in the East.

Last season, the Mets built a huge lead and coasted into the playoffs. This season, the Mets, with Philadelphia nipping at their heels, have played on the edge.

Where does Pedro Martínez fit into this Mets team that he indirectly helped build? We’ll find out beginning today.

The Mets began this season anticipating that they would have to win without Martínez.

“Obviously we’d love to have him,” Manager Willie Randolph said. “He adds another dimension to this team. But this team has learned to win without Pedro.”

The Mets have learned to win. The question is whether they can win big without Martínez.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Teaching From His Mistakes

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: August 5, 2007

Canton, Ohio

During the past eight days, baseball and pro football fans have listened to inspiring speeches and watched great highlight films.

Last Sunday, in the quaint village of Cooperstown, N.Y., Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn capped a feel-good weekend at the National Baseball Hall of Fame not with tear-splashed speeches, but, rather, by their presence. In the midst of the controversy surrounding pervasive steroid use in baseball, fans embraced two of the game’s most popular stars.

Nothing, however, could match the emotion here Friday during the dinner for the six players who were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last night: two offensive linemen, Gene Hickerson and Bruce Matthews; a defensive back, Roger Wehrli; a tight end, Charlie Sanders; a wide receiver, Michael Irvin (pictured); and a running back, Thurman Thomas.

The inductees received their yellow Hall of Fame jackets Friday night, completing the symbolic transformation of great players into Hall of Fame players.

Of the eight inductees we watched the last two weekends — Ripken and Gwynn in Cooperstown and the six Pro Football Hall of Famers here — Irvin was the most compelling.

“I used to tell people, ‘O.K., the best get to play in college, and then the best of that best get to play in the N.F.L.,’ ” Irvin said Friday. “This is the best of the best of the best.”

Irvin led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl championships and compiled great statistics for his position. But he is just as compelling for how he wrestled with — and often lost to — forces outside of football. He represents a sense of realism in an era when we would prefer our sports heroes to kiss babies and pet puppies.

I’m far more intrigued by a flawed star like Irvin.

•

I am not advocating that we reward poor judgment, only that we acknowledge that poor judgment will happen.

In fact, Irvin said he favored the new approach to player misconduct taken by N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell. “He’s trying to help these young guys make better decisions,” Irvin said. “At 21, 22, 23, you make a decision and you think it’s gone and in four or five years, that everybody will forget about it. That’s not the reality, not anymore.”

Everyone has lapses of judgment, everyone makes mistakes, although not everyone’s missteps become public. Irvin’s did.

There was an arrest in 1996 on charges of cocaine possession at a hotel party while celebrating his birthday. He was sentenced to community service, ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, put on four years’ probation and suspended for the first five games of the 1996 season.

In 2000, the year he retired, Irvin was arrested on drug-possession charges that were later dropped. In 2005, he was charged with a misdemeanor after the police found drug paraphernalia in his car. He said that he was taking the items away from someone he was trying to get off drugs and that he cared more about that than about his chances of being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“Of course I have regrets,” he said Friday. “Some of the things that have happened off the football field, I don’t think anyone would raise their hand and say, ‘I want that to happen.’ ”

On the other hand, Irvin effectively communicates with young people precisely because of his missteps. Mistakes and misdeeds are part of life; the challenge is recovering from mistakes.

“I was the hard-headed young guy,” Irvin said. “Now I’m talking to a lot of hard-headed young guys. It’s not that they don’t want to hear it. They hear it, but it won’t take root until it’s time for it to take root. They’ll hear what you say, and the job is to give them something. You give something — you hope it prevents them from doing certain things. But the reality is, they’ll probably still get in some situations, and hopefully what you gave them will help them get through it. A lot of times, you don’t learn until you’re in the mess yourself.”

Irvin’s career ended in 1999 in Philadelphia. His head was driven into the hard artificial turf by a hard tackle. He was carried off the field on a stretcher, praying, “God if you let me walk away from this, I will straighten up.”

He sustained a cervical spinal cord injury. As he walked away from the game, his mother, Stella, said she reminded him constantly, “Michael, you are on a short leash.”

•

At the end of an emotional evening Friday, Stella stood by a table with her children and grandchildren, basking in the glow of a miraculous evening. She said she wished her husband, Walter, could have been a witness. Shortly before he died in 1983, Walter Irvin told his wife he had a vision that Michael would be drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in the first round.

On Friday, Irvin’s mother said she had a vision about her son’s future. “Michael’s got another job to do,” she said. “Michael’s got to preach; he’s going to have to do it before he leaves this world.”

The Right Reverend Michael Irvin.

Has an odd ring to it.

But once upon a time, so did Michael Irvin, Hall of Famer.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Union Chief Wonders if N.B.A. Was Focused

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: July 23, 2007

Last week, Bill Hunter, the executive director of the N.B.A. Players Association, received what, at the time, seemed to be an unusual e-mail attachment from the N.B.A. office.

The document was a questionnaire requesting detailed background information and disclosures from N.B.A. officials. “I was wondering why they sent to me a questionnaire seeking all this background information,” Hunter said yesterday during a telephone conversation from Italy.

Now it all makes sense.

Last Friday, the league acknowledged that the F.B.I. was investigating Tim Donaghy (pictured, left) a veteran N.B.A. official, on the suspicion that he bet on games, including ones in which he officiated.

Hunter said that after he received the inadvertent e-mail message, he called his secretary, who told him that the N.B.A. said the document had been sent to Hunter by mistake; it was intended to go to the referees.

“So I guess they’re now doing this huge background check on every referee,” Hunter said, “asking for their history, credit rating, everything.”

According to law enforcement officials, authorities are examining whether Donaghy made calls to affect the point spread in games on which he or associates had wagered over the last two seasons.

For Hunter, the allegations raised issues of where the league spends its energy and resources in marketing, and monitoring, itself. In recent seasons, the league has made a concerted effort to control player behavior on and off the court. Now, in the wake of the F.B.I.’s investigation, the N.B.A. may have a major blind spot.

“When we talk about image,” Hunter said, “the focus has always been on the players, because we have a league that is predominately black, so a lot of other things probably tend to go unscrutinized.

“If anything, this demonstrates that they weren’t fully focused,” Hunter added, referring to the N.B.A., “that they were focusing more on the game in terms of player conduct as opposed to reviewing whether or not the game itself was in jeopardy, in terms of conduct by referees.”

A determination of guilt or innocence has yet to be made, but the mere fact that the F.B.I. is conducting its inquiry forces a league to look at the men and women who enforce games and help determine their outcome.

One of the critical but unanswered aspects of the F.B.I. investigation is how long the N.B.A. and Commissioner David Stern knew that a veteran referee was under investigation.

Yesterday, two people briefed on the investigation said the league did not know of it until after the season ended.

“I don’t know what Stern knew or what he didn’t know,” Hunter said. “He didn’t disclose anything to me. All I know is that David pays people to keep him informed. He makes every effort to know everything there is to know.”

•

Perhaps the F.B.I. informed Stern of the investigation but asked him to refrain from making any moves until it made sure it had a solid case, Hunter said.

Hunter pointed out that Bernie Colbert, formerly a special agent in charge of the Buffalo division of the F.B.I., is now the N.B.A.’s chief of security.

“David pays for information,” Hunter said, referring to the league’s willingness to devote resources to a security staff. “He doesn’t like to be embarrassed. Maybe in this instance he was. All I know is that his chief of security is a former F.B.I. agent.”

Hunter said that none of the players had expressed any knowledge about an investigation, although some players, Rasheed Wallace in particular, had expressed concerns about Donaghy. In 2003, the N.B.A. suspended Wallace, then with Portland, for seven games after he confronted Donaghy on the loading dock of the Rose Garden arena. Donaghy had called a technical foul on Wallace during a game against Memphis.

Hunter said the players union challenged the fines levied against Wallace. “We got most of his money back because we just thought this guy was way out of line when he confronted Rasheed when it was all about the calls that he had made during the course of the game,” Hunter said.

We have yet to hear Donaghy’s side of the story and the F.B.I. has yet to make any arrests. But at a time of plummeting television ratings, the N.B.A. can ill afford a scandal that violates the essence of what the public loves about games: honest and fair competition.

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“It affects us because it affects the image, sanctity and the integrity of the game,” Hunter said. “If in fact that’s going on, I know that Stern has to be extremely concerned.”

Stern, who did not respond to a request for comment last night, said in a statement last week that the investigation was focused on a single referee.

The league can only hope that Donaghy was acting alone among officials and not in a network.

“We’ve got a serious problem as it is,” Hunter said. “But if it penetrates beyond that” — and involves others in the league — “then we’ve got grave problems.” Stern knows how to market. In 2003, in a typical lecture about the importance of preserving the image of the N.B.A., he said that what fans “want to see is basketball, and we’re anxious to show our game.”

Stern has presided over expansion, globalization, lockouts and brawls. But in the wake of a potential scandal, maintaining the public’s trust could be the commissioner’s toughest sell yet.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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