Ex-coach leads betting-ban foes into hearing

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, April 25, 2001 | 11:13 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A respected former basketball coach is expected to be a star witness for Nevada at a congressional hearing Thursday that pits the state's gambling industry against the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Former coach, NBA talent scout and Hall-of-Famer Pete Newell, 85, plans to tell the Senate Commerce Committee that an NCAA-backed bill that bans legal betting on college sports in Nevada is misguided. He has said the legislation will not curb illegal gambling by college students or deter game-fixing schemes, as bill supporters suggest.

"We are very fortunate to have Vegas," Newell told the Sun in a recent interview. "It's the one entity that can discern game-tampering."

The NCAA will feature respected coaches at the hearing: football coach Lou Holtz and Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams.

The bill was authored by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and John McCain, R-Ariz., the Commerce Committee chairman. Brownback has said allowing legal college sports gambling in one state -- Nevada -- fosters a culture in which students believe illegal gambling is also acceptable. He said betting on students is "unseemly."

The hearing is the first for the bill this year, although McCain's committee passed the legislation last year. It died without reaching the floor. A similar House bill met the same fate.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., are expected to testify against the bill. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sits on the Commerce Committee and has drafted a list of tough questions for witnesses.

McCain allowed Ensign to select about half the witnesses, Ensign said.

"I think there will be hyperbole, I think there will be emotion," Ensign said. "We will try to win the day based on facts."

Newell will balance the star power of the coaches testifying for the NCAA, Ensign said.

"I think he makes a very cogent argument," Ensign said.

Other expected witnesses include:

NCAA gambling point man Bill Saum; Penn State senior forward Titus Ivory; University of North Carolina President Emeritus William Friday; Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Rep. Tom Osborne, R-Neb.; Edward Looney, executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling; University of Georgia President Michael Adams; Howard Shaffer, professor at Harvard Medical School division on addictions; Trev Alberts, CNNSI analyst and anchor; Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education; Danny Sheridan, sports analyst for USA Today; and Tracy Dodds Hurd, associate sports editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The hearing falls against a backdrop of a frenzied lobbying campaign by both Nevada lawmakers and the NCAA to sway members of Congress.

The Nevada delegation has said the NCAA bill does not attack the problem of illegal gambling. The legislation merely outlaws the 1 percent of gambling in America that is legal and regulated -- the betting in Nevada, they said.

Gibbons and Ensign have introduced their own bill, which launches a gambling study, increases penalties for illegal gambling and requires universities to implement anti-gambling programs.

Osborne, former Nebraska football coach, sides with both the NCAA and Nevada. He has said the bills together attack both legal and illegal gambling.