Authors: Jeff Benedict,Don Yaeger
“In prison the message is ‘no, no, no, no,’” said Roberts. “We, as adults in society, can’t put that kind of concrete approach on a twenty-two-year-old. We have to give him chances, and go back and forth and teach them what to do. And although we see guys out there socking coaches and smoking joints, some kids are being saved by the system of professional athletics.”
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ill Corey Dillon be saved by professional athletics? Early indications looked promising. Dillon completed his one season at Washington and his rookie season in Cincinnati without a single incident involving the law. On January 15, 1998, he was named AFC Rookie of the Year.
However, on March 3, 1998, while back home in Seattle, he was arrested for driving under the influence and driving on a suspended license. According to the police report, Dillon was “very hostile and uncooperative. He was yelling and would not comply with our requests for information.” Hours after being released from the same county jail in which he had spent time as a juvenile, Dillon insisted, “I was harassed, the whole nine yards.”
On June 3, 1998, Dillon pleaded guilty to negligent driving and was sentenced to 90 days in jail with 89 days dismissed. He was also placed on probation for two years and ordered to attend a drunk driving victims panel.
Arrested Development
At the end of January of 1998, three weeks after Baltimore Ravens running back Bam Morris was carted off to a Texas state prison to serve a ninety-day sentence for violating his probation in a felony drug conviction, Ravens owner Art Modell decided to cut him from the roster. “He became a major distraction for the team,” Modell told the
New York Times,
“and a major distraction to the city of Baltimore.” When asked why an athlete like Morris, who seemingly had everything, would throw it away, Modell replied, “I just think that, sadly, he did not display sufficient responsibility in his everyday life. I think he always thought people would take care of him.”
Modell failed to mention his role in contributing to Morris’s belief that “people would take care of him.” Modell also didn’t mention his team’s role in Bam Morris’s probation violation. The authors obtained a sworn affidavit signed by Art Modell on October 9, 1997, the same day Texas authorities secured a warrant to arrest Morris for failing to attend mandated meetings with his probation officer. In the affidavit, which was sent to Rockwall County prosecuting attorney Ray Sumrow, Modell stated under oath, “On or about August 21, 1997, Mr. Morris was required to be in Baltimore in regard to his employment. Given the complex nature of Mr. Morris’s position on the club, it was vital that Mr. Morris not miss any time from work from July 15 through August 31. Therefore, he could not leave Baltimore to attend a probation meeting in Texas.”
Knowing full well that Morris was at risk of going to prison for missing appointments with the probation department, the Ravens apparently saw his presence at training camp as being more important than his appointments with the probation department. Worse, this was while Morris was under league suspension for failing a urine test and therefore unable to play in the first four games of the season anyway. Sumrow was stunned by Modell’s admission that football practice had caused Morris to violate probation. “And here’s the reason why he missed appointments, I wouldn’t let him go. The hell with your probation,” Sumrow said, summarizing his opinion of Modell’s view. “It signifies how they look at reality. The NFL has this same attitude, ‘We’re the NFL. Who the hell do you think you are, trying to take us on?’ Talk about brazen.” Prior to receiving Modell’s affidavit, Sumrow had requested results of Morris’s failed urine test, but the NFL refused, insisting the results were privileged information since they are part of a voluntary substance abuse program and they were barred from releasing the results by the players’ collective bargaining agreement.
“What other company or reputable business would attempt to block the state from verifying that one of its employees may have violated the terms of his probation in a felony case?” Sumrow asked. “Experience has shown me that we have never had this problem with another company. The NFL is trying to hide behind a rule that was not intended to act as a shield for persons who have violated terms or conditions of probation. The NFL is big business. That’s all it is, it’s just a business. They want to protect their interests as much as possible. But their interest in making money and my interest in seeing that the government is effective are certainly different.”
These never-before-reported aspects of the Bam Morris case are but two in a series of events that made his arrest far more than just another simple case of a highly successful athlete being caught with a few pounds of drugs in his car.
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hen the final gun sounded at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, on January 28, 1996, the scoreboard read: Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 17. All that remained was for Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to award the Super Bowl hardware to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and head coach Barry Switzer.
Amidst the euphoria, an NFL Films crew huddled around Cowboys star running back Emmitt Smith as he walked triumphantly off the field, his family in tow. He had just led the team to its third Super Bowl victory in four years. But long before the game was played, Emmitt had agreed to appear in the annual postgame Walt Disney commercial.
“Emmitt Smith, you just won the Super Bowl. What are you and your family going to do now?” the famous voice asked.
“We’re going to Disneyland,” Smith responded with a scripted line, the brim of his new championship hat already drenched in sweat.
This was Smith’s second appearance in the Disney ad. NFL players began appearing in the “I’m going to Disneyland” commercials in 1988. Smith, along with Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Jerry Rice, and Joe Montana, represented the select few who have been featured in the ads after careful consideration by Disney. There is a general misconception that the Disney ads automatically feature the Super Bowl MVP. Not so. In addition to representing the NFL’s talent elite, each player must pass a scrupulous litmus test screening out all but the most articulate, noncontroversial players with public appeal. Smith and the others represent the NFL’s rare blend of superstar talent and model citizenry.
But while Emmitt Smith went off to Disneyland, his Super Bowl counterpart, Steelers running back Bam Morris, left for the Gulf of Mexico’s South Padre Island, a resort town twelve miles offshore from one of the hottest drug-trafficking spots on the Texas-Mexico border. Drug enforcement officials estimate that 75 percent of the marijuana, along with a substantial amount of the cocaine and heroin, entering the U.S. passes through Texas. With local law enforcement powerless to stop well-connected Mexican drug cartels from using their small border towns as distribution houses for massive quantities of drugs, the federal government, through the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, beefed up its presence on the border. As a result, towns within driving distance of Padre Island sometimes resemble occupation zones where local farmers and ranchers tote automatic weapons and Border Patrolmen wear bulletproof vests.
Weeks after playing in the biggest game of his life, Morris chose to vacation at ground zero of America’s war on drugs. Unlike Emmitt’s, this was one trip that was sure not to be featured in NFL Films.
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ecords from South Padre Island’s Radisson Resort verify that Morris and his boyhood friend Rodney Reynolds checked in on March 17. According to phone records, fifty-eight phone calls were placed from Morris’s room during their four-day stay. Many of the calls were placed repeatedly to the same telephone numbers. Criminal background checks performed on the individuals to whom those phones were registered revealed that six of them were convicted felons, most for drug-related offenses.
One of the individuals whom Morris was calling had recently been released from prison after serving time for possession with intent to distribute four tons of marijuana.
A second phone pal had been arrested by federal authorities in Corpus Christi for intent to distribute forty-five kilos of marijuana and had recently been released from the federal penitentiary in Forth Worth, Texas.
“My question is how does a guy such as Bam Morris know these people?” Ray Sumrow asked rhetorically in an interview for this book. “How does he know to pick up the phone, much less even have the phone numbers, of such individuals?”
According to bank transaction records, on March 19, Morris wired money from his bank in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to an institution in Donna, Texas. Morris and Reynolds picked up the money from the Donna bank that same day. A town of 14,000 that is saddled with poverty, Donna has seen drug smuggling gain acceptance as an escape. Corruption spread as far as the town’s chief of police, Clemente Garza, Jr., who, along with six of his officers, was arrested and charged with conspiring with smugglers who were ferrying shipments of drugs across the river from Mexico into Donna without police resistance.
The day after their bank pickup in Donna, Morris and Reynolds checked out of the Radisson and headed for Dallas. Two days later, Mark Spears, a Drug Interdiction Task Force agent, was stationed along Route 30, approximately twenty miles east of Dallas, when Morris’s shiny black Mercedes passed him. Spears, whose business card reads, “In God We Trust, All Others We Search,” was suspicious of the out-of-state plates and unusually dark tinted windows. Unable to see in the car windows, Spears began tailing the Mercedes. When Morris veered over the white line into the shoulder, then back into the passing lane, Spears pulled him over.
The Drug Interdiction Task Force is a specialized unit of agents and investigators which patrols the Texas highways for the transshipment of illegal narcotics, contraband, weapons, and money. Their business is to recognize and intercept drug traffickers. Spears’s unit, which patrols a small geographical area northeast of Dallas, seized over $1 million in cocaine, crack, and other narcotics during fiscal year 1996–97, plus over $1.5 million worth of marijuana, distinguishing them as the top drug task force in the state.
At Spears’s request, Morris got out of the vehicle and produced his license. “I’m Bam Morris,” he said as Spears examined his license, which read, “Byron Lekee Morris.”
“Where are you coming from?” Spears asked, still unaware that the man he had pulled over was an NFL star.
“Edinburg, Texas, at an autograph session,” Morris responded. “I’m a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
An NFL fan, Spears finally realized who he had. Having watched the Super Bowl weeks before, he remembered seeing Morris run up and down the field. But when Morris said he was on his way from Edinburg, red flags went up in Spears’s mind. He had been assigned to train drug agents in Edinburg. As a safety precaution, Spears and his team were required to drive inconspicuous cars and remain behind curtain-drawn motel room windows when not working. “Edinburg is almost like Mexico,” said Spears. “It’s a major source city. You don’t want anyone to know you are police. If you’re off-duty and they find out who you are, it’s not going to be very good. They’ll kill you in a heartbeat down there on the border.”
“Where are you headed?” Spears asked Morris.
“Cooper,” Morris said nervously.
After talking briefly with Morris, Spears returned to the car and privately questioned Reynolds, who claimed, contrary to Morris, that the two were on their way back from a vacation in Padre. He said nothing of any autograph session in Edinburg.
“They had conflicting stories,” said Spears. “So I asked Bam for consent to search his car.”
The automobile had been leased to Morris by Mercedes for $86,000. In the trunk were various pieces of luggage, including a black and blue Reebok gym bag. Spears unzipped the Reebok bag and discovered six one-pound bales of marijuana, a pair of size 13 Reebok basketball shoes, and some Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirts. Each marijuana bale had been carefully wrapped in Saran wrap, then covered in axle grease to mask the odor, and covered in a second layer of Saran wrap. Some of the bales had also been wrapped in aluminum foil. Cling Free dryer sheets were placed between the bales to further conceal detection by smell.
Morris denied that the drugs were his, suggesting to Spears that he ask Reynolds who the marijuana belonged to. But Reynolds likewise insisted the drugs were not his. “Bam was thinking his friend was going to take the fall,” said Spears. “But his friend wasn’t going to do it.”
Bam’s shoe size was the same as the sneakers found in the bag alongside the drugs and the Steelers shirts. Reynolds’s feet were five sizes too small to fit in the Reeboks.
Sensing the potential for this arrest to become a publicity magnet, Spears radioed to task force headquarters.
Within minutes, Task Force Commander Patsy Williams and Assistant Commander John Davila were on the scene.
Davila brought along a video camera and carefully filmed the condition of the car and the contents of Morris’s gym bag. “This was not the doing of a rookie,” said Davila, referring to the manner in which the drugs were packaged. “Whoever wrapped the dope had done it before. It took some forethought and some knowledge of how to wrap it up. It was done as well as anything we find on the highway.”
The sheer amount of marijuana seized, which is underscored by the fact that it was compressed, made it obvious these drugs were not for personal use, Spears said. When asked what alternatives there were for having this amount of drugs if they weren’t for personal consumption, Spears replied, “For sale.”
In Edinburg, seven pounds of marijuana can be purchased wholesale for as low as $1,000. But the going street price for marijuana in northern Texas where Morris was stopped exceeded seven times that amount, a nice profit.
After arresting Morris and Reynolds, the task force turned the case over to District Attorney Ray Sumrow, no stranger to the techniques employed by drug traffickers. “Most people don’t carry fabric softener sheets around in their vehicle,” he said in reference to those pulled from Morris’s trunk. “People trafficking in narcotics do, quite often.”