College betting foes cite protection of ‘purity’

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Kevin Pendergast cringes when people call him the "mastermind" of point-shaving scandals at Northwestern University.

But he takes personal responsibility for being at the center of a gambling scheme that ended after he flew to Las Vegas in 1995 to oversee a $20,000 wager made at Caesars Palace on a Northwestern-Michigan basketball game.

Pendergast needed Northwestern to lose by more than 25, but the Wildcats lost by 17. He lost the money. The scheme was exposed. Last year he spent two months in jail for it.

Now the National Collegiate Athletic Association is using Pendergast, 28, who is visibly uncomfortable in the spotlight, as a poster boy for its effort to outlaw legal betting on college sports. He has spoken at 40 colleges as part of a plea agreement.

He says easy access to legal betting in Las Vegas made it easier for him to carry out the plan.

"I blame all the mistakes I made on Kevin Pendergast," he said. Later he delivered the blow the NCAA wanted to hear, "Without Nevada, this wouldn't have happened."

Several lawmakers led by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., 10 NCAA and college officials, and three student athletes gathered for a media conference Tuesday in a packed Capitol Hill hearing room to unveil a bill that would ban legal bets on high school, college and Olympic games. Nevada is the only state with legal wagering on college games.

The lawmakers said they do not intend to outlaw other forms of gambling, just "betting on kids." They aren't after the enforcement of illegal tailgate party bets or office pools, they said.

The purpose of the law is to send a message to the gambling underworld that threatens the "purity" of student athletes and to cut down on gambling scandals that taint college sports.

Brownback displayed a chart he said showed a correlation between increases in money wagered on college sports and sporting scandals. He said eight scandals surfaced in the 1990s, compared to two in the 1980s and one in the 1970s.

"These were the ones who were caught," Brownback said. "How many other cases have occurred?"

Leahy added, "It's early enough to prevent this from becoming a scandal of national proportions."

Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., a Notre Dame alum, plans to introduce a version of the betting ban bill in the House with Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"In my home state of Indiana, it is very difficult for anybody to get a ticket to a high school basketball game on a Friday night," Roemer said. "We want to protect the integrity of those sporting events."

Several high-profile coaches who have lent their star-power to the betting ban proposal did not attend the press conference, including Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and former North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith.

"I commend you for sponsoring this important legislation that, if adopted, will close a loophole that has allowed legal betting on college sports to continue in Nevada," Smith wrote in a letter to Brownback and Leahy.

Nevada's four members of Congress on Tuesday promptly blasted the legislation that would hurt Nevada sports books. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said, "Boiler room bookies will exist whether or not there are established, regulated sports books in Nevada."

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., called it "misdirected" attempt that ignores the bigger problem of illegal gambling outside Nevada.

Sen Harry Reid, D-Nev., is mounting a counterattack: He plans to introduce a bill this week that orders a panel to study illegal betting on college athletics. "Banning legal wagering on college sporting events is ill-conceived and will only lead to more illegal betting," Reid said in a written statement.

At a ceremony marking Treasure Island's receipt of a Four Diamond award Tuesday, Mirage Resorts Inc. Chairman Steve Wynn also criticized the bill.

"This is the most singularly misguided, dumbest and off-the-point legislation I've seen in 33 years in the gaming business," he said. "Nobody who has a shred of intelligence can back it.

"College students gamble on college campuses with illegal bookmakers. There's no factual connection between legal sports betting and student betting.

"This will go away because it hasn't got the legs," Wynn said. "It can't withstand debate or examination. Ideas with no validity or truth die."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., plans to introduce a companion bill in the House. Gibbons also fired off a letter to NCAA president Cedric Dempsey on Tuesday, writing, "While your organization reaps billions of dollars from blockbuster media deals, many college athletes are struggling to pay their way through college. It is time that the NCAA tackle the problem of illegal betting on college campuses."

But NCAA officials said they don't make huge profits from college sports. They said the money they earn from lucrative television contracts goes right back into athletic programs.

Pendergast, a former Notre Dame soccer player and place kicker, seemed the most reluctant speaker at the podium Tuesday. He talked more about his story with a handful of reporters gathered around him afterward.

He called gambling a "weakness." He had rung up huge credit card debts surpassing $10,000 by the time he graduated in 1994.

Mutual friends put him in touch with Dion Lee, a Northwestern basketball player who eventually agreed to make sure his team lost badly.

Pendergast, promising Lee big profits, broke even on a Northwestern-Wisconsin game after an accomplice in Las Vegas made bets for him above and below the point spread. He won big in a Penn State blowout of Northwestern. He personally flew to Las Vegas to oversee a $20,000 bet he lost when Northwestern lost by only 17 to Michigan on March 1, 1995. That was his last bet, he said.

A Northwestern booster tipped authorities to Lee. Lee gave up information that led authorities to Pendergast.

Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of Pendergast's first day of a two-month term in a New York prison. He hasn't been back to Las Vegas, he said.

"This was something basically that fell out of the sky," Pendergast said. "I took it and did the wrong thing with it."

Sun reporter Gary Thompson contributed to this report.