Editorial: Coach is a voice of reason

Monday, April 16, 2001 | 9:55 a.m.

The enlistment of legendary former college basketball coach Pete Newell in the battle against a bill in Congress that would prohibit betting on college sports in Nevada is a big victory for the state. Newell, a member of basketball's Hall of Fame, has offered to lend his voice to the argument that tightly regulated legalized wagering is the best way to avoid game tampering.

Newell is every bit as influential in his sport as are the coaches who have lined up behind the National Collegiate Athletic Association in their wrongheaded attempt to ban college betting in Nevada. Newell won an NCAA men's basketball championship with the University of California, Berkeley, in 1959 and then followed up as the gold-medal winning coach in the 1960 Summer Olympics. He was also named national coach of the year.

He later became a National Basketball Association scout and continues to run the Pete Newell Big Man camp, attended by many of the nation's top collegiate players. Newell knows basketball as well as anyone in the country and therefore has a solid understanding of the evils that have led to point-shaving scandals and other embarrassments for the sport.

Newell is correct when he told reporter Ben Grove of the Sun that Washington cannot control campus gambling, which is the real issue here. The NCAA needs to turn to its own member universities for assistance, rather than point fingers at Nevada. It is our hope that members of Congress lend substantial weight to Newell when he testifies against the bill. It would also be nice to see other like-minded coaches step forward to promote the argument that Nevada's well-regulated sports gaming industry is preferable over the widespread illegal wagering that has infiltrated our universities from coast to coast.