Columnist Ron Kantowski: Point-shave movie lets books slide

Thursday, March 28, 2002 | 10:58 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

If TV huckster Ron Popeil had a gadget with your favorite NCAA team's logo affixed to it, this certainly would be the month to promote it.

Among the new releases since March Madness tipped off were a Bob Knight movie and a Bob Knight book. And if the women's NCAA Tournament isn't enough to sustain your interest in college hoops between Final Four Saturday and Terrific Two Monday, hoop-a-holics will be able to turn to a new made-for-TV movie about the 1994 Arizona State point-shaving scandal for their, um, fix.

"Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie," premiers Sunday on the FX cable network at 5 p.m. It's a typical made-for-TV sports movie that, as usual, features a Turturro (Nick, who played Martinez on "NYDP Blue") and nobody else you've ever heard of.

I feared the worst when I received the press kit. The cover showed the actors who portray campus bookie Benny Silman and former ASU star Stevin "Hedake" Smith, the co-conspirators of the scam, surrounded by a bevy of scantily-clad coeds. The girls have hundred-dollar bills and hard-bound books with titles such as "Point Shaving 101" covering their breasts.

Even more morally reprehensible was that the network saw fit to include the transcript of its interview with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the point guard for a movement to abolish legalized betting on college sports.

"Well, you blame the unscrupulous people who exploit them (college athletes)," McCain says in the interview. "But the interesting thing is the bets were laid off in Las Vegas. If they hadn't a place to bet, it would have been much more difficult."

Apparently, the Senator doesn't believe that as long as there are dark alleys, bogus storefronts and office water coolers, there will always be a place to bet on college sports. But if there's a whipping boy for what ails the nation, we've got the welts on our backside to prove we're it.

Sure enough, the movie is all of three minutes old when the Silman character proclaims "... the best thing about Arizona State is that it's only two six-packs from Las Vegas" and he and his New York homies are tooling down ersatz U.S. 93 in the stereotypical convertible.

But in a development that is more shocking than Duke's Jason Williams sinking a clutch free throw, Las Vegas isn't depicted as the total heavy in the movie. It even credits the checks and balances of the betting industry (specifically, the Mirage and the Gaming Control Board) for blowing the whistle on Silman and his pals -- which McCain disputes -- and then dishes off some blame on the NCAA, too.

In trying to convince himself that he is justified in tanking a few free throws and playing matador defense against Oregon State, the Smith character rattles that his talent will help generate $700,000 in revenue for his school and some $50 million for the NCAA -- but nothing for himself.

It was then that he and Silman corroborated on what the Silman character called "the perfect crime. No clues, no witnesses. Hedake mastered the art of giving 98 percent."

But to make a really big score, there had to be middle men who were 100-percent greedy to bankroll the operation. Naturally, that's where the scheme unraveled.

The movie ends with the Silman character recounting how everybody lost their shirts and a whole lot more. Almost everybody, that is. "The Vegas sports books were the only winners -- the house never loses," Silman sighs.

But does that make us evil, or just smart?