Pros and Cons (2 page)

Frisoli, however, was not from the cable company. He is the president of Special Agent Systems Consultants, a Boston-based private investigation firm. When Mastroianni returned the call, Frisoli began peppering him with questions about a police report Mastroianni had requested from a police department in another state. “Are you working for those guys writing the book on the NFL?” Frisoli asked, indicating how much investigative work he already had done. Frisoli did not volunteer how he obtained a copy of Mastroianni’s cable bill, though it appeared the bill may have been used by Frisoli to find Mastroianni’s home address. Unlike the police records requests Mastroianni was filing, cable bills are not public record.

Frisoli, it turns out, works on contract for the NFL. His team of private investigators is one of twenty-nine such firms the NFL employs to keep track of players—and those who may do damage to player reputations—in NFL cities from Buffalo to San Diego. Repeated messages left at Frisoli’s firm by the authors went unanswered. The NFL, too, refused to discuss how—and why—one of its hired hands was taking time to track down college researchers, instead of, say, tracking down the same criminals that Mastroianni was.

Questions surrounding Frisoli’s actions weren’t the only ones the authors didn’t get to ask. In March 1998, when the research for this book was concluded and statistics and police reports compiled, the authors wrote to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue asking for the opportunity to share the information with him and ask questions about league policy. Through his top press aide, Greg Aiello, Tagliabue declined to answer the questions. “We’ll read the book, I’m sure,” Aiello said. “When it comes out, if anyone wants us to respond, then we’ll respond at that time. But we’re not interested in being part of the book. I appreciate the opportunity.

“We think we have a pretty good handle on what our players are involved in—the good and the bad,” Aiello continued. “This book is going to portray half of our players as a group of criminals and I don’t think there is any way that we are going to be able to change that.”

Half of our players?
Our research suggested it was closer to a quarter of the players. Maybe he knows something the authors don’t.

1

Crime Pays

“Is your son an organ donor?”

That was the question a medical assistant asked Sara Boyd at 1:30
A.M
on May 11,1996, as she stood over her twenty-one-year-old son, Bryan, while he lay unconscious on a gurney in the trauma center at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Thirty minutes earlier, Sara and her husband, Doug, were awakened by the middle-of-the-night telephone call that every parent dreads. “Mrs. Boyd,” a friend of Bryan’s said as he choked back tears, “I just want you to know that Bryan has been jumped. It’s serious. I prayed with him before the EMTs put him on a stretcher. He moved his lips. I know he heard me.” Other than saying that Bryan was being taken to a nearby hospital, little more by way of detail was provided.

According to the incident report filled out by police officers who responded to a reported “gang fight” outside Bobby McGee’s, a Fort Worth, Texas, bar, “Bryan Boyd was beaten by several white male TCU football players.” Unbeknownst to officers who discovered Boyd lying in a puddle of his own blood that night, Boyd had previously sued TCU football player J.W. Wilson after Wilson assaulted him the previous year. One week before the incident at Bobby McGee’s, Wilson had reached an out-of-court settlement to pay Boyd $6,000 compensation for medical injuries sustained as a result of Wilson’s attack. When Boyd and Wilson crossed paths inside Bobby McGee’s on May 10, Wilson’s teammates asked, “Isn’t that, [Boyd] the guy you beat up last Thanksgiving?”

Later, as the 180-pound Boyd left the bar, Wilson’s teammates Ryan Tucker, J.P. McFarland, Jay Davern, and Billy Thompson—three of whom weighed over 250 pounds—followed him outside. It was payback time. First, words were exchanged. Then, fists started flying in a four-on-one attack. After fracturing Boyd’s skull by ramming him head-first into a brick wall, Wilson’s four teammates nearly kicked Boyd to death while he lay unconscious and hemorrhaging, facedown in the parking lot. Six witnesses, including a bouncer for the bar, told police that the players repeatedly kicked Boyd in the head. The players were then seen running away from the motionless Boyd and speeding off in two vehicles, a blue Blazer and a red Jeep Cherokee. The police report described Boyd as “bleeding from the nose, the ear, around the eyes, possible broken shoulder, busted upper lip, bleeding from back of head.”

W
hen Sara Boyd arrived at the hospital, a doctor and nurse were waiting for her outside the trauma center. “Mrs. Boyd, we’re doing all we can,” said the physician, as he escorted her inside. “But we’ve seen patients with less serious head injuries and lost them.” The nurse suddenly stopped Mrs. Boyd as the group was about to proceed through the double doors into the trauma unit’s emergency treatment area. “Mrs. Boyd, I don’t think you’re prepared for what you’re about to see,” the nurse cautioned. “I’ve never seen a worse assault.”

Hooked up to an IV, Bryan had oxygen tubes running into his nose. A shiny metal pan was positioned under his ear to catch the blood and fluid that was still draining from his head. Much of his upper body was covered in bandages. His face was swollen beyond twice its normal size. Seeing black tread marks resembling the imprint of a car tire across her son’s torso and back, Sara thought that her son had been run over by a car. He had not. The doctor explained that those were imprints from the soles of the shoes worn by the football players.

The doctor left Sara alone, encouraging her to talk softly to her unconscious son. Unable to find a big enough portion of unmolested skin on which to place her hand, Sara gently clutched her son’s garment and prayed. Suddenly, a flash of light interrupted her whispers. A police photographer had entered the room and started taking pictures of Bryan from the foot of the bed.

“Why are you taking pictures?” Sara pleaded with the officer. “This kid is dying.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer responded respectfully, having just come from the crime scene. “But I have to take these. I’m working this as a potential homicide.”

U
ltimately, Bryan Boyd survived, but not without paralysis, memory loss, and permanent brain damage. On June 17, 1996, all four football players were indicted for assault with a deadly weapon capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. None of the players, however, were suspended from the TCU football team. Head coach Pat Sullivan saw no reason to suspend the players “until the criminal justice process has run its course.” It was a convenient stance, given the indicted players’ importance to the team. More particularly, Sullivan’s decision saved the career of Ryan Tucker, TCU’s All-Conference center, who was able to play through the 1996 season, catching the attention of NFL scouts looking for mean and nasty linemen.

Tucker didn’t need to worry that his criminal act would cost him a shot at the NFL. He had every reason to believe he would be welcomed into the league with open arms—at least with the arms that aren’t bound together by handcuffs. But why should Ryan Tucker worry? Although the Boyd family may find it hard to imagine, Ryan Tucker was by no means the worst character in the National Football League.

In April of 1997, while awaiting trial for the violent felony, Tucker was selected in the fourth round by the St. Louis Rams. Reporters, aware of the Rams’ recent problems with criminally deviant players, asked the coaching staff about the decision. “He can finish a fight, that’s a positive,” head coach Dick Vermeil quipped in downplaying to reporters the seriousness of Tucker’s case. Vermeil’s portrayal of the four-on-one beating as a “fight” went unchallenged. Ironically, with the team under scrutiny for the off-field woes of running back Lawrence Phillips, reporters asked little more about the Rams’ willingness to sign a guy who could very well go to prison for his part in nearly killing a man.

Phillips and other high-profile, criminally convicted players such as Michael Irvin not only receive an inordinate amount of attention for their behavior, they also deflect attention from countless other lesser known players with far more disturbing criminal histories. Ryan Tucker, whose past includes two additional allegations of violent assaults, is a classic example. In researching this book, the authors were repeatedly asked, tongue-in-cheek, “How many chapters do you have on the Dallas Cowboys?” The answer to this question was always the same: “None.” Although Michael Irvin is briefly mentioned in the book, the Cowboys are not the focus of a single chapter. The reasons are simple: 1) their problems have already been overreported, and 2) few of the crimes which Cowboys players have been convicted for in recent years compare in seriousness to the crimes detailed in this book.

I
t’s no secret that NFL teams draft players who have had run-ins with the law, even players who have served time. (As long as they are “players,” of course.) And why not, the logic goes. These guys are not being drafted into the Boy Scouts of America. This is pro football. Besides, if you listen to coaches and NFL team spokespersons, these past “indiscretions of youth” are not serious crimes. Consider Dick Vermeil’s comments after drafting Ryan Tucker. “First off,” Vermeil explained to the press, “character guys get in fights from time to time, especially when they didn’t start it. I like the guys that don’t start it but finish it. I like those kind of guys. This is a physical contact game. … But we’ve got a ton of guys in the National Football League that have some true character problems. I don’t believe this guy does.” Of course not. What coach wouldn’t try to minimize the negative public exposure that his team may face when drafting a violent criminal?

Another popular excuse used by team and league officials to justify the drafting of criminally convicted players goes something like this: as long as these players have served their jail time, it would be unfair to deny them an opportunity to earn a living and become productive members of society. After all, what adult wants to be judged on the basis of the follies of adolescence?

Sounds fair enough. But with mottos like “Just Win Baby,” how far will NFL teams go to rationalize giving players with checkered pasts a new lease on life? Will they forgive a habitual criminal offender if he can run a 4.3 forty? Or draft a violent felon because he can bench-press over 500 pounds? How about a drug dealer? A convicted sex offender? A member of a violent street gang? An accused killer?

The evidence suggests the answer is yes to all of the above.

In researching this book, the authors identified 509 players whose criminal records could be checked in two states or more (see Authors’ Note). Of these 509 players, an amazing 109 had been formally charged with a serious crime.

With NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s recent strong public stance against players’ off-field deviance, one might wonder how many of the players in the authors’ survey were kicked out of the league.

Answer: zero.

The closest Tagliabue has come to taking a stand against a criminal player was in 1990. Four years earlier, backup offensive lineman Kevin Allen was cut from the Philadelphia Eagles due to poor performance. Days later, he raped a woman and was arrested. After serving thirty-three months in jail following his conviction, he petitioned the league for the opportunity to play again. Tagliabue denied the petition, saying, “The public perception of [Allen’s] being released from prison and then being allowed to return to football is very negative, and there’s validity in the perception. There is a negative public reaction to NFL players who engage in criminal conduct and then are allowed to re-enter the league.”

The commissioner’s stand against a journeyman lineman rings hollow considering the number of other players
in the league today
who have served time in jail or prison for serious crimes. And his statement in the Allen case flies in the face of the league’s more commonly stated approach toward criminal conduct. “We’re not the criminal justice system,” NFL spokesperson Greg Aiello told the
Washington Post
in 1994. “We can’t cure every ill in society. You know, we’re putting on football games. And unless it impacts on the business, we have to be very careful [from a legal standpoint] about disciplinary action we take. A player has rights too.”

Unless, of course, he gambles. This misdemeanor offense will get a player banned right quick, and there will be little clamoring from the NFL about due process. Why? Because gambling, like steroids, gives the image of an artificial on-field product, which has a direct correlation to, as Aiello said, the “business” of the NFL. Violent crime, on the other hand, apparently does not.

Together, the 109 players who showed up in the authors’ survey with a criminal history had been arrested a combined 264 times. That’s an average of 2.42 arrests per player.

Keep in mind that the 264 arrests involve only the most serious offenses. Although the authors discovered a substantial number of players who had been charged with minor misdemeanors (credit card theft, shoplifting, urinating in public, disturbing the peace, etc.) and traffic offenses (speeding and driving with a suspended license), none of these offenses are included in the authors’ statistics. The intent was to deal strictly with the more serious criminals in the NFL and the very serious crimes they commit.

A breakdown of the 264 arrests shows:

2 for homicide

7 for rape

4 for kidnapping

45 for domestic violence

42 for aggravated assault/assault and battery (nondomestic violence cases)

25 for other crimes against persons, including robbery and armed robbery

15 for drug crimes, including intent to distribute cocaine, possession of cocaine, and possession of marijuana

32 for crimes against property, including fraud, larceny, burglary, theft, and property destruction

35 for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs

17 for resisting arrest