Hazard To Your Health

Every time I see one of those lists of the most dangerous professions, I look for "sports columnist." I find fire fighter, coal miner, police officer, and reporter in Iran, but never sports columnist.

As a columnist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I'm empowered to interpret the complexities of the sports world with some perspective—my perspective, that is. Unlike reporters, who are supposed to be impartial, columnists are hired to express their opinions. With this privilege come certain hazards, especially when you feel compelled to criticize local Icon U. Just ask John Rohde of The Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City, who received threats after he wrote several columns about the scandals that are rocking the University of Oklahoma's football program (page 20).

My latest scare came last month, when I blasted administrators at Georgia Tech for their slow-footed reaction to a violent incident involving three football players and a female student during 25-cent-draft night at a pizza parlor near campus.

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Jan. 18, senior linebacker Kevin Salisbury, sophomore offensive tackle Mike Mooney and junior guard Jim Lavin became embroiled in a confrontation with Lisa Steffee, a 5'8", 120-pound senior who was at a nearby table with several friends. According to witnesses and published reports, the three players had drunk lots of beer when the 6'7", 321-pound Mooney began spewing lewd remarks toward another woman at Steffee's table. Mooney approached the table and, after a few more trashy remarks, dared the now-agitated Steffee to douse him with her brew. She did.

Salisbury, who's 6'4" and weighs 245 pounds, came to his teammate's aid by punching Steffee, cracking her nose in two places, an injury that will require plastic surgery. The ensuing fracas involved the three players, an off-duty police officer who was in the restaurant, and Steffee's date, who was pummeled by Mooney and Salisbury. "I pretty much figured they were going to kill him," said Steffee.

The players were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to simple battery, and spent the night in jail. Two days later football coach Bobby Ross met with the three players and said any punishment by the school would probably be a "private" matter.

Not if I could help it. On Jan. 22 my column, bearing the headline TECH REACTION TO BEATING MUST SEND CLEAR MESSAGE, labeled Ross's stance "outrageous." Such an attitude, I wrote, "completely ignores the victim's public pain," and the university's investigation "smells of a rat.... Dare we say, a potential whitewash?"

I went further. In light of revelations concerning increased steroid use in college football, I wanted to know if the players, particularly Salisbury, were clean: "One by-product of heavy steroid usage is a shorter emotional fuse and a tendency to, at times, behave irrationally," I wrote. "Is striking a woman more than a hundred pounds lighter than you are a rational act?"

Within days my mailbox was stuffed with angry letters from Georgia Tech fans and the phone was ringing constantly. Among my new pen pals was a man from Norcross, Ga., who wrote that my mentioning steroids was "repugnant to all that is decent between men." He also said the paper should fire me. A fan from De Kalb County, Ga., said my thoughts "reek of prejudice and hatred and did not deserve to be printed." A member of the class of '59 claimed I was "intentionally trying to undermine" the university's fine athletic program because I had "never been exposed to such [a program]." My response to that letter was signed: Roy S. Johnson, Stanford class of '78.

Like most newspapers, the Journal-Constitution runs photographs of its columnists along with their columns. That can be a drawback for a black columnist, whose image seems to invite every racist with a quarter for a postage stamp to vent obnoxious beliefs. Since joining the Journal-Constitution, I've received at least one letter a week peppered with the N-word and other sundry insults.