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Thursday, January 2, 1997

In the name of Richard Jewell, media should have waited for arrests before printing allegations against Irvin, Williams

By Rich Hofmann / Knight-Ridder Newspapers (Jan. 2, 1997)

PHILADELPHIA (KRT) - Just wondering ...

Why is it that we are able to know, before the police have determined that there is enough evidence to arrest Michael Irvin and Erik Williams, that a woman has filed a complaint alleging that Irvin held a gun to her head while Williams and an unidentified man sexually assaulted her?

And why is it, in the days following the Eagles' wild-card playoff loss at San Francisco, that a suburban California police department is telling the world that a woman who might or might not be a prostitute is saying that a member of the Eagles' practice squad raped her the night before the game?

Couldn't this wait? For a day? For an hour?

If the police in Dallas had enough evidence, they would have arrested Irvin and Williams by now. If the police in tiny Millbrae, Calif., had enough evidence, they would have arrested the unnamed Eagle by now. And maybe they will get the evidence. And maybe they will arrest and convict these guys. And if they do, here's hoping that the judges involved impose the maximum sentences allowed - and then double them, especially in the case of Irvin and Williams, for aggravated arrogance and serial stupidity.

But couldn't it wait? In the name of Richard Jewell, couldn't it?

The police could still have their well-attended press conferences - after they had enough for an arrest. They could still bask in the bright lights and answer all the questions and get their faces on coast-to-coast television - after they were sure of their information and prepared to proceed.

But why now? Why doesn't a "no comment" suffice until everybody's story has been sorted out? Why isn't there more caution about the reputations of these players or these teams, especially in the months since law-enforcement people identified Jewell as the Olympic Park bomber and then were forced to publicly clear him?

The man's life and reputation were ruined, for months and maybe years to come. With their statement clearing him, law enforcement was attempting to repair the irreparable. The attempt was a miserable failure. The lesson for everyone involved should have been a profound one. Police should not identify subjects of investigations. Police shouldn't say anything until they've made an arrest. No one's reputation should be ruined by an unfounded allegation. No person's reputation. No organization's reputation.

But here we are. Irvin and Williams are national news again. The Eagles are in this horrible limbo of having their name soiled, but being unable to say much of anything in reply.

Limbo. Arrests to follow, presumably. Honestly, a situation such as this one is usually a columnist's dream - especially the Cowboys part. You could have flunked Pontification 101 and still manage to do a pretty effective fist-shaking, finger-pointing, tsk-tsking number on everybody involved.

If Irvin and Williams did it, they're vermin. If they didn't quite do it the way it's been painted but still put themselves in such a sordid situation, they're idiots. Nobody would argue with that. Nor would anyone dispute the notion that the Cowboys have the look of an institution out of control.

And if you want to blame Cowboys coach Barry Switzer because this looks terrible, that's fine. But if you want to blame him for the alleged criminal actions of grown men, that's ludicrous.

This isn't college. When he was at Oklahoma, Switzer ran a laissez-faire kind of program. The rough translation from the French of laissez-faire is "don't get caught." And when they started getting caught, it was time for Switzer to go.

College is a different animal. In college, the coach indeed has a measure of parental responsibility for what happens to his players - he feeds them, houses them, counsels them. They're kids, for the most part. And when they started putting handcuffs on Sooners with an astonishing regularity, firing Switzer was both appropriate and necessary.

Norman isn't Dallas, though. College isn't pro.

These are grown men. Their lives outside of football are their own. And just because Switzer is a tad detached from the daily doings of the Cowboys doesn't make him somehow responsible for these allegations. I mean, if running a loose ship and not putting in a lot of practice hours and such was a breeding ground for criminals, every one of Rich Kotite's players in two cities would have been locked up long before now.

Irvin and Williams didn't undergo personality transplants when Switzer walked in the door. They are who they are, and a historical look at both the police blotter and the available anecdotal evidence suggests that the Cowboys were dancing with the devil long before Switzer began his fiddling.

And another thing: There isn't a team in the NFL that would have gotten rid of Irvin based on his drug arrest and court case this summer. Not one. Now, these new allegations are different. If true - if arrests are made and convictions obtained - there will be no decision to be made because Irvin and Williams will be in jail. And that's where they will belong.

But based on what happened over the summer? Every team would have done what the Cowboys did. They would have watched Irvin plead no contest to the drug charge. They would have waited for him to sit out his NFL suspension, welcomed him back with a warm, fraternal embrace, and then they would have gone about the business of attempting to win as many games as possible. Don't kid yourself.

The whole Cowboy culture is disgusting in a lot of ways - the image, the excess, all of it. But it sells. The thing is, people clearly don't care what the Cowboys do off the field. They don't care what any professional athletes do - as long as they don't go out on strike for prolonged periods of time and deprive us of our entertainment and escape.

That's our world. Welcome to it.

Still, there are limits. If the reports are true, Williams and Irvin have reached them. For Irvin, especially, they can then prepare his NFL epitaph. They can use his own words, the ones he spoke to the Dallas police officers who came to the motel room that contained Irvin and the two topless dancers and the marijuana and the cocaine.

The epitaph: " 'Can I tell you who I am?"

But that's for later. After the convictions. After the arrests. Presumably.

(c) 1997, Philadelphia Daily News.

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