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Articles
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The Court of Public Opinion It's not that simple By: Richard Linde, Posted 7 June 2003
In both cases, one needs to look at Rick Neuheisel, the man, before forming an opinion. In this latest incident in his 42-year-old life, in this latest skirmish with the NCAA--a fight for his college coaching career--Rick Neuheisel's character is the central issue, regardless of what the NCAA constitution says about his activities or how its bylaws are interpreted. So... If I’m Rick Neuheisel's defense lawyer, here’s my summary argument in front of the Supreme Court of Public Opinion. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Rick Neuheisel needs to leave the Washington program like a head coach should: (1) Either fire him for having a losing season; (2) bid him adieu for having a championship season, letting him seek a better position; or (3) let him stay until he retires. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are talking about a man's future, his livelihood, his ability to support a family. “He could get jobbed by the NCAA, not for what he did or didn’t do as a head coach. He could get fired because he participated in a silly basketball pool, which meant nothing to him, other than being a friend to a friend, a buddy to a buddy, a comrade to a comrade. He got busted because a ratfink, who remains anonymous, reported his actions to the NCAA and The Seattle Times, the latter of which has been on his case since he took the job at Washington in January 1999. “Neuheisel didn’t break any laws; he isn’t a habitual gambler; and he’s as honest as the day is long; sure there were a couple of notable lapses when he violated the spirit of some NCAA rules. All of them were minor infractions. The NCAA called him "creative." “Let’s look at a couple of these "creative" infractions. “My client visits a recruit’s home at night when he’s not supposed to have visual contact with him, parks his car outside the kid’s house, calls him on his cell phone, tells him to come to the front window, and flashes the headlights of his car to tell him that he’s thinking about him. “The kid probably thought he was nuts, when all Neuheisel was saying, ‘Hey, kid, I care about you.’ “Or how about the time, Neuheisel talks with the coach of a quarterback recruit during a period of time when he could not speak directly to the recruit? Allegedly, he speaks loudly enough for the recruit, who is standing nearby, to overhear the conversation. The kid wasn’t surprised, though, and says every college coach on a recruiting trip does some ‘bumping’ in one form or another. “At Colorado, my client lends some cold-weather gear from the equipment room to inner city kids from LA who are wearing T-shirts and baggy pants on their recruiting trip. Some of them don’t return the equipment, and Neuheisel takes the rap for them. "When you look at the NCAA rules he’s allegedly violated, there isn’t one of them that many other coaches haven’t broken and won’t continue to break. They escape retribution because they live in cities where college-football mania rules the day, in cities where the following of football has not been poisoned by the politics of the sports media. “Rick Neuheisel is a player’s coach, and some of his players took advantage of him last season, performing perfunctorily at times. Finally, they rallied around him and won the last three games of the regular season for him, but only after the coach cracked the whip. “Neuheisel is one of those nice guys who doesn’t know how to say 'no' to a friend if the request is within reason. “He doesn’t need an ethics course; he needs to attend an assertive training seminar. “He shouldn’t have been a football coach; he should have been a counselor. “He shouldn’t have studied law; he should have studied medicine. “He’s one of those guys who will give a panhandler 5 bucks, no matter how disreputable looking and filthy he is. He'll give 10 dollars to a Girl Scout for her cookies when his pantry is stocked full of them. He'll give a panhandler a buck for cleaning his windshield and, on the next block, run his windshield washer. “A friend calls him and asks him to interview for a job at a company he works for; the coach says 'yes' when he should say 'no.' A friend asks him to participate in a basketball pool; the coach says 'yes' when he should say 'no.' Barbara Hedges asks him to attend a charity event and he says 'yes,' even though he’s dog tired and wants to stay home and tuck his kids in bed that night. “If Rick Neuheisel had anteed up $5 for the basketball pool and lost it, would anybody have cared? Of course they wouldn’t have. Don’t let the amount of money RUMORED to be involved be a determining factor in your decision. "Any scenario--speculative argument--my worthy adversary concocts about the amount of money bet and won is based on the word RUMOR. Such arguments fall into the wastebasket of speciousness, for the excess-money argument is a non sequitur; it is a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said since no one know how much was bet and won, just rumored. "According to the NCAA rule on gambling, betting one penny is a violation of the rule. Now that's absurd. A clarification needs making. How high is high, and under what circumstances? Has betting with a neighbor become a crime in this country, when its state governments are financed by gambling casinos? "If state governments limited the average bet to one dollar, their cash cows, the casinos, would go out of business. “Say, that you coach college football and some friends invite you and your wife over to their house to watch the March Madness championship game, and the host runs off a ten-by-ten grid for the possible scores in each quarter. You and your wife throw twenty bucks into the pool and win some money. "In my client's mind, if he'd said 'no' to the pool, his friends--their neighbors-- would have thought he didn't trust them. "He shouldn't have trusted them. The next day the neighbor or a friend of the neighbor calls the NCAA and reports my client's gambling activity. “That’s called a setup, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. "The mirrored ride of the Neuheisel saga, along a well-lit path of success and foible, reflects on those who use his career—their exploitation, so much so, a shattered mirror of humankind. In this, the tumultuous part of his career, I can only wish the best for my client and his family. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case." Now, I’m the prosecutor. “That’s one way to look at the Neuheisel imbroglios, ladies and gentlemen of the jury; the other way is to strictly interpret the NCAA rules on bumping and the rule stating that coaches can’t make in-person visits to recruits during a “quiet” period. “The breaking of these rules, regardless of how minor they are, shows that Coach Neuheisel is lacking in character and integrity. “Furthermore, the NCAA bylaw on gambling says that staff members of the athletics department of a member institution and student-athletes shall not knowingly solicit or accept a bet on any intercollegiate competition for any item (e.g., cash, shirt, dinner) that has tangible value. “How could he not have known about this rule? It's right on the Internet. If he were uncertain of the rule, all he had to do was go to Google and type ‘NCAA rule on gambling.’ NCAA bylaw 10.3.d would have appeared on his screen with just a click of his mouse. If he wasn't sure about the rule and its ramifications after he read it, he could have spoken to the compliance director at Washington. “Fair or not, Neuheisel knew he was under close scrutiny by the Seattle media--that they were on his watch. The print media had warned him several times of that fact. “It should have been no surprise to him when John Levesque, a Seattle P-I reporter, said that he overheard him talking on his cell phone with his mother about the 49ers job vacated by the firing of Steve Mariucci. He said he lied to Levesque, during the boarding of their flight, without thinking. He finally told the truth about the interview when the cell-phone incident was bared by the P-I. He said he lied about the interview to protect a confidentially agreement he had with the 49ers. He should have told the truth, and he admitted to that. “How can we trust this man? He doesn’t know how to tell the truth. “It shouldn't have surprised him that someone reported his gambling activity, as minor as it seemed, to the NCAA and The Seattle Times. "As for the amount of money gambled and won, Bud Withers of the Seattle Times offers this scenario: 'As Oklahoma entered the NCAA tournament this year, its All-American guard, Hollis Price, had a strained groin. Let's say Neuheisel has a good buddy on the Oklahoma football staff who happened to hear from Price's coach that the injury was worse than publicized. Do we really need a college coach who's about to toss thousands into a pool soliciting injury information from another?' “Neuheisel doesn’t have any commonsense and lets he emotions get the better part of him. He doesn’t deserve to be a football coach at the University of Washington, one of the finest institutions of learning in our country. The University of Washington has the most storied football program of any institution in the Pac-10 conference, dating back to November 28, 1889. Don't let this scoundrel sully its reputation further. "Coach Neuheisel is addicted to friends, friendship, camaraderie and notoriety. Don't be fooled by his charm, wit and gregariousness. Richard Neuheisel lacks the willpower to be a successful football coach. All he had to do, was just say no.” --------------- Author's note. As a member of the jury, I've made my decision. It's time for you to make yours.
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