Authors: Jeff Benedict,Don Yaeger
On the evening of February 11, 1989, Officer Paul Leung, an undercover cop on the Seattle police force, set himself up in the downtown area and attempted to purchase drugs. At approximately 9:30
P.M
., he was approached by Corey Dillon and two other males. In exchange for cash, the three gave Officer Leung a small brown envelope containing a rock of cocaine.
At approximately 9:35
P.M
., uniformed officers Ed Maser and D. Tichi, who were working in concert with Leung, arrested Dillon and the two men. In frisking the men, the officers discovered three additional rocks of cocaine in one of the other young men’s underwear.
On January 19, 1990, Dillon, who was fourteen years old at the time, was ordered by the court to serve ten days’ detention, undergo nine months of state supervision, perform forty hours of community service, and have no use or possession of drugs or alcohol. Dillon’s juvenile status saved him. Had he been an adult at the time of his arrest, he would have been facing twenty-one to twenty-seven months in state prison.
Dillon’s agent, Marvin Demoff, declined to return repeated calls made by the authors in an attempt to interview Dillon for this book.
D
espite the seriousness of Dillon’s felony drug case, this was hardly the most dangerous offense he had committed. Court records reveal a series of violent altercations with law enforcement authorities over a four-year period that culminated in a 1994 incident that nearly spilled over into a riot.
First, on March 30, 1990, Dillon pleaded guilty to obstructing a police officer. The plea stemmed from an incident on January 11, 1990, in which Dillon chased a man and threatened to beat him with a large stick. He was charged with creating “a substantial risk of death and serious physical injury.” When Seattle police officer C. Bonner intervened, Dillon “hinder[ed] and ostruct[ed]” her from performing her duties. The government agreed to drop the charges against Dillon for reckless endangerment in exchange for his plea of guilty regarding his conduct toward the police officer.
Then on November 16, 1990, the court convicted Dillon of obstructing a police officer and resisting arrest. This incident occurred on July 31, 1990, when Dillon fought three Seattle police officers to prevent them from arresting him.
After investigating Dillon’s juvenile criminal history, the authors went to Cincinnati coach Al Roberts and asked him: “How would you describe Dillon’s juvenile record?” His response was: “Corey is a follower. As a kid he was always with the guys, but he never did it himself. He would be there and be around it, but he wouldn’t do it…. All the little distinctive things that Corey was supposed to have done, I’m sure he was in the area. Did he actually put his hands in it? I’m going to say no. Was he around it? Yes.”
Granted, Dillon ran with a pretty tough crowd (more on them later), but the record hardly squares with Roberts’s portrayal of Dillon essentially being guilty only by association. Further, Dillon’s conduct didn’t change when he reached legal age.
On May 21, 1994, at approximately 1:00
A.M
., Seattle police received a telephone call from Pier 57, a popular tourist spot along the Seattle waterfront. Pier 57 manager John E. Nelson requested help controlling a party that had drawn far more visitors than the restaurant could hold. The Multi-Greek Council from the University of Washington had booked a party at one of the Pier’s establishments from 10:00
P.M
. until 1:30
A.M
. The door counters stopped counting at 432, and Nelson estimated to police that at least 600 people were inside, far exceeding fire safety regulations.
Due to the Pier’s location on Alaskan Way (the main thoroughfare running through the waterfront district of downtown Seattle) and the fact that upward of 600 people would be turned out into the streets all at once, Seattle police responded by sending foot patrolman, as well as officers who were on bicycle and in patrol cars. In all seventeen officers and three sergeants showed up. The Alaskan Way was temporarily closed down in both directions, as were the major streets coming in and out of the waterfront area. With traffic at a standstill, the police shut down the party and cleared the building.
In their attempt to safely move a large alcohol-enhanced, somewhat rowdy crowd safely out of the Pier 57 restaurant and across the busy streets, officers witnessed a violent incident flare up on a sidewalk and spill into the street. In the plain view of four Seattle police officers, Corey Dillon, then a nineteen-year-old adult standing six foot two and weighing 200 pounds, punched a woman in the face. The blow dropped the woman to the ground, at the feet of the pressing crowd.
While officers intervened to aid the woman, Dillon escaped by pushing his way into the sea of people. The crowd was so hostile toward the woman whom Dillon had assaulted that police had to form a human shield around her.
Suddenly, Dillon bolted back out of the crowd and broke through the police barricade in an attempt to further attack the woman. As four officers tried arresting Dillon, he turned on them. Dillon’s aggression easily incited his friends in the crowd, who quickly surrounded the officers. One officer, who was trying to handcuff Dillon, was assaulted by one of Dillon’s close friends. Shaking off the friend’s blow and attempting again to handcuff Dillon, the officer was again struck by the friend, this time in the chest.
With Dillon and his group physically challenging the police and a crowd gathering in the middle of the main street, police sensed that the scene was on the verge of being completely out of their control. Officers responded by spraying aerosol pepper spray at Dillon and his friend. The pepper spray momentarily subdued the friend, but it only enraged Dillon, whose strength proved too much for the four officers trying to pin him down. Ultimately, six officers were required to physically restrain Dillon, apply handcuffs, and get him in the back of a police cruiser.
On July 11, 1994, Dillon pleaded guilty to assault and obstruction.
“He used to have a chip on his shoulder toward authority,” explained coach Al Roberts. “Corey walked around with that chip when he was younger. And did he like to fight? Yeah. He’s a big strong kid. Somebody would start a fight and Corey would finish it. And when people asked, ‘Who did it?’ people would say, ‘Corey Dillon.’ Because when you’re talking about ‘hoods, you are going to see Corey. He’s a massive man and he walks with pride. Look at what he did on the field in his first year with the Bengals. Imagine him walking around the ‘hood doing this.”
On at least three occasions, Dillon’s so-called fights were with
police officers.
Nonetheless, Roberts insists that Dillon’s animosity toward authority dwindled after he started playing for the Huskies. “When he got to the University of Washington, some of that chip fell off his shoulder because he was exposed to more young kids and started going to parties where the good kids were,” Roberts explained. “Not that his old buddies were bangers, they just weren’t graceful. Suddenly, he was hanging around with people who have more grace about them.”
Yet with his childhood neighborhood just minutes from the Washington campus, Dillon did not stop hanging around with his old friends from the ‘hood. “I’m not going to change who I am,” Dillon said in an interview while attending Washington. “If you were cool with me before, you’re cool with me now.”
One evening, Dillon’s friends from the ‘hood clashed with his new friends on campus, namely fellow scholarship football players. According to Roberts, one evening in the fall of 1996, a bunch of football players and women were partying on campus. Dillon invited some of his friends to attend. One of Dillon’s friends, whose girlfriend was supposed to meet him at the party, arrived late. Upon entering the party, he discovered his girlfriend dancing with one of the football players.
“The guy [Dillon’s friend] comes in and sees his girlfriend bumping with one of the ballplayers,” Roberts explained. “He pulls out a gun and fires it. The athletes jumped out of a two-story building to get away from the gunfire.”
Wonder if the “good kids” at the college party would describe Dillon’s friends as “bangers” or merely “less graceful”?
In any event, Washington’s star running back Rashaan Shehee sustained a season-ending injury to his foot when he landed awkwardly after jumping out of the second-story window. As a result, Dillon took over the starting position. Hey, what are friends for?
G
iven Dillon’s extensive juvenile record, the obvious question is: How did he qualify for an athletic scholarship to Washington in the first place? The root of this answer stems back to his 1994 conviction in the incident where he assaulted a woman and then turned on police officers outside the Seattle waterfront restaurant. Facing up to 365 days in jail and a $5,000 fine, Dillon was spared jail time by the court due largely to his opportunity to attend college and play football at Garden City Community College in Kansas in the fall of 1994.
When deciding on a criminal sentence, it is not unusual for courts to take into account a young offender’s proven intention to attend college. Why? Criminal justice research suggests that persons who go to college are less likely to be arrested as adults. Many juveniles who end up in the criminal justice system either don’t have the chance or the desire to go to college. For those who do, judges will often tailor sentences to accommodate the individual’s effort to gain an education. Community service, for example, can be performed in the state where the prospective college is located, which is exactly what happened in Dillon’s case.
This courtesy, while helpful in supporting those whose primary objective is to obtain a college degree, is exploited in some instances by college football players and their coaches. First, football-friendly adults are often assigned to monitor a convicted player’s community service, and then vouch for his completion of the terms with the court back in the state where the crime was committed. Consider the following letter written by F. James Gush, Dillon’s academic advisor at Garden City Community College, to a Seattle probation officer on July 19, 1995:
“This letter is to serve as verification for community service that Corey Dillon performed during the 1994–95 school year at Garden City Community College.
1. Buddy day: Worked with area youngsters on football skills. (3 hrs.)
2. Project Read: Visited an area elementary school and read to the school children. (8 hrs.)
3. Senior Citizen’s Banquet: Along with other team members, served food at the Senior Citizen’s banquet and later attended the Senior Citizen’s dance.
4. Career Day: Participated (as a college football student-athlete) in a career day seminar at a local junior high school. (4 hrs.)
5. Served as a volunteer referee for college intramural basketball games. (30 hrs.)
6. Participated in the college work-study program as an office assistant. (120 hrs.)”
Welcome to Criminal Justice 101—football star style. It’s hard to imagine other convicted criminals receiving a sentence that involved refereeing intramural basketball games or being used as a role model to talk to schoolchildren about career choices. Ironically, in Washington state, Dillon had been barred from stepping on the grounds of the school next door to his home after he was arrested for barging into the school one afternoon with his loose-knit gang of friends and assaulting two students on March 23, 1992.
All of this combines to convince players like Dillon long before they reach the NFL that the rules are different for them.
As far as the courts’ belief that imposing flexible sentences will allow convicted student-athletes like Dillon to earn a degree, that too is a farce in most instances. Often, the goal of making it to the NFL is not compatible with graduating from college. According to the National College Athletic Association’s most recent statistics, only 52 percent of Division I-A scholarship football players graduate from college. Dillon is a prime example. After two seasons at separate junior colleges (Garden City Community College in Kansas and Dixie College in Utah) and just one season at Washington, he withdrew from school and declared himself eligible for the NFL draft.
And if he gets in trouble with the law again? “If the market calls for spending $5 million on a running back, and he steps on us by going out and smoking dope and gets caught, we punish them and give them another chance,” Roberts explained. “When you take chances on these guys, sometimes you get hit in the mouth. Jim Anderson [Bengals running backs coach] has gotten hit in the mouth a lot of times. Check the history of the Bengals’ running backs prior to Corey Dillon.” Previous Bengals running backs who ran into trouble with the law included Ickey Woods, Larry Kinnebrew, Stanley Wilson, Derrick Fenner, and Jeff Cothran. “Yet the first thing Jim did was stand up for Corey and say, ‘Let’s take this chance again.’”
The authors asked Roberts if there was a risk involved in drafting players with histories like Dillon’s and paying them millions of dollars to play professional football. His answer came with one condition: “I’ll tell you if you print this correctly.”
Fair enough.
“I’m an adult,” Roberts began. “When I was a kid I wanted adults to take a chance on me when I messed up. At twenty-four I was not the most graceful person in the world. At fifty-four I can tell you that I have some grace about me. So I turn around and take chances on young kids. As adults, we should take chances on kids, or this same kid is going to grow up and be foul. Then the same adults who stuck their feet out there and held that kid down instead of putting their hand out there and helping him up will say, ‘Well, look at this degenerate generation.’ As adults, we have to put that carrot out there and say, ‘This is what you do, and this is not what you do.’”
The carrot here is a million-dollar salary, hero status, and the chance to play a boys’ game for a living. Not bad for a guy who has a serious criminal record, no college degree, and no professional training to speak of. Yet it’s tough to dispute Roberts’s philosophy. The NFL, unlike any other business of equal reputation, is offering an opportunity to young kids who, in some cases, would otherwise be castoffs in society, written off as criminal teens who will one day end up behind bars for life. Some players, as a result of that opportunity, never again have contact with the criminal justice system.