COMMENTARY : It’s Past Time to Stop Destroying Careers

We destroyed Al Campanis’ life because of some idiot remarks on “Nightline.” We turned that name, Campanis, into a synonym for racism in sports, even though Al Campanis had done more for minorities in baseball than anyone since Branch Rickey. Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder was called “reprehensible” by his bosses at CBS and fired after talking in his rough, gambler’s style about the physical traits of black athletes. Snyder lives out his days in ruin and obscurity because he did not use the right words.

Now we try to do the same job on Art Shell because of one word, alleged to have been spoken during a football game. The word is “white.”

And that is not enough to damage an honorable football career and an honorable life. If that one word, white, placed before an obscenity in a sideline argument is enough to finish somebody, than we have become as vicious in the name of political correctness as people who use words that are much worse, such as ethnic pejoratives.

Shell, coach of the Raiders, got into a big shouting match with his quarterback, Jeff Hostetler. This was in a game against the Dolphins on Oct. 16. A play was sent in to Hostetler from the sideline. Hostetler changed the play in the huddle. This was not an audible called at the line of scrimmage after the quarterback looked over the defense. This was the quarterback in a moment of insubordination. Now it is reported by Chris Mortensen of ESPN that Shell called Hostetler a “dumb white . . . “ when Hostetler came out of the game.

Shell and Hostetler both deny the story. I’ve known Chris Mortensen a long time and worked with him in newspapers once. He is a terrific, responsible reporter. He swears his story is true. Al Davis, the managing general partner of the Raiders, said last week, “I do not believe (Shell) said it.” Davis said he has talked to everybody near Shell and Hostetler when the argument occurred.

NBC, which broadcast the game, says it had only video of the incident, no sound. Some people in sports television have even hired lip readers to look at the footage. The lip readers say there is not much doubt that Shell used the word “mother---” for his quarterback, but they say he turns his head right before that, so no one can see him say “white.”

But if he did, so what?

People say we must have the same rules for Shell that we had for Campanis and Snyder. If we do, does that mean we have to hand out the same sort of hanging-judge justice? Somewhere along the line, the people who fancy themselves the Thought Police have turned into cheap vigilantes.

You want to believe the ESPN story and you want to go after Shell and Hostetler then for covering the whole thing up, go ahead. Usually with something like this, the coverup is worse than the crime in the end. If it happened that way, it does not make Art Shell some kind of bum. It makes him human. Sometimes we prosecute being human in sports, sometimes not. A few weeks ago, Giants Stadium rocked with cheers for a recovering drug addict named Lawrence Taylor who once bragged in an autobiography about cheating on NFL drug tests. Some of these same people probably want to have Dwight Gooden deported because he seems to be the same kind of cocaine junkie.

Jack Nicklaus was asked recently by a writer for a golf magazine why there aren’t more blacks on the pro golf tour. Nicklaus gave his answer and talked about “different muscles that work in different ways.” How different was that from what Jimmy the Greek said? Or don’t these things count as much if they don’t happen on television?

Do I believe Shell said these things? I do. I wish he had apologized and moved on. But maybe Shell learned more than we did from Al Campanis and Jimmy the Greek. Maybe he saw how little forgiveness there was for them, how little understanding, from the hanging judges of the tabloids and talk radio. So Shell decided to let it be his word against ESPN’s. Then Hostetler went along with him. That is where we are, as far as we may ever get with this, unless somebody can produce the audio version of what we saw on the sideline at Joe Robbie Stadium.

People act as if it is always a level playing field. They want to know what would happen if the same thing happened with a white coach, if he got caught using this kind of language. But it is never a level playing field. The word “white” will never be as loaded as “black.” Because “white” has not been used as a synonym for “lazy” or “stupid” or “shiftless” for about 200 years. If it is such a level playing field, if the rules have to be exactly the same, how come it took so long for a black man like Shell to get a coaching job in the National Football League?

The same people who want Art Shell to play by the same rules as white folks now--Shell probably wishes they were around in the ‘50s and ‘60s when he really needed them.

Somehow, there has to be a way for one angry moment, one word, not to suddenly obscure all the good in a man’s life. Shell was born in 1946, in South Carolina. He went from there to an all-black school, Maryland State, to one of the great Hall of Fame careers in the history of pro football. He was a figure of dignity, respected by teammates and opponents. In 1989, Al Davis made him the first black coach in modern professional football. This was not Branch Rickey selecting Jackie Robinson for the Dodgers. But Davis picked Shell because he had seen the full measure of the man, as a player and then as a coach.

“I have the same respect today that I have always had for Art Shell,” Al Davis said Wednesday. “I have respect for him as a human being. I’m not just talking about his approach to football, but to his life. If I didn’t think he was an outstanding man, he wouldn’t have gotten this job in the first place.”

None of this means Shell is perfect, incapable of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing. You cannot live nearly 50 years as an American black in the second half of the 20th century and not build up anger, crazy anger sometimes, about white America. Maybe some of it got away from him after his quarterback was insubordinate. He got mad, then I believe he said something stupid. Shell is not the first.