Last night, I read that the NBA hired a retired Army Major General to be in charge of its referees. The initial reaction in the media seems to be that this is a bold move by David Stern to put the Tim Donaghy situation – and his allegations that some NBA games might not have been on the up-and-up – deep into the past. General Ronald L. Johnson served for 32 years as a combat engineer; he was at one time the Commanding General of the Army Corps of Engineers. For two years, he oversaw the activities aimed at rebuilding Iraq.
No one can question General Johnson’s service to his country nor can one question his ability to deal with complex problems. Nothing that I have read or heard would indicate that there is even a single venal bone in his body. I will stipulate that he is a man of honor and integrity and goodwill.
Having said that, I am not sure I see how a career in the US military or service in the Army Corps of Engineers has even a little to do with running the NBA’s referees. It is more than a stretch of the imagination for me to believe that Tim Donaghy did what he did in his associations with gamblers for 5 years because the NBA Front Office was disorganized or overworked. Let me review two milestones here to see how the addition of a senior military officer might make a change:
1. Donaghy consorted with gamblers and bet on various sporting events for five years without anyone in the NBA having a clue what was going on. That is not conjecture on my part; that is what David Stern told us. General Johnson is not clairvoyant nor is he a mind reader. His presence in this job five years ago would not have prevented the situation; he would have just added one more person to the “uninformed list”.
2. Donaghy claims that the league itself had a preference for the Lakers/Kings series to go seven games in 2002 and that preference made itself known to the officials in game six. The Lakers used a series of highly questionable calls in the fourth quarter to make a big comeback and force a seventh game. Now, explain to me how the presence of General Johnson would prevent that from happening or how his presence will prevent people from thinking it happened whether or not it did. Bottom line: He would not have and he will not.
David Stern said this in the announcement that General Johnson would be taking over this responsibility:
“Ron’s wealth of leadership and management experience, together with his engineering expertise in areas such as systems analysis, processes, and operations, make him an ideal candidate to lead our officiating program. Our referees are the best in the world but they never stop striving to improve and Ron has made a career out of getting the very best out of people.”
No offense to General Johnson here, but “leadership” within a command structure is more than a little bit different from “leadership” in the civilian world. As Commanding General of the Corps of Engineers, he could get thousands of his subordinates to put their left hand over their right ear at noon simply by issuing an order for them to do so. Now he will deal with referees who generally believe that they know what they are doing and simply need to be told when and where to show up and do their thing. Oh, and the referees have a union too and a collective bargaining agreement. Last time I checked, there wasn’t a Union of Sergeants in the Corps of Engineers who might want to discuss various directives that came down from “the head shed”.
By the way, if “engineering expertise in areas such as systems analysis processes and operations” was truly critical to the job of overseeing the NBA referees, then David Stern and his cohorts in the league office have been asleep at the switch for the last 25 years. The fact is that all this expertise demonstrates that General Johnson is an intelligent and organized person with the ability to focus on getting a job done. But whatever engineering expertise he has will not come into play in this new job. Overseeing basketball referees can be done without any PERT charts…
Look, I have a significant preference that General Johnson succeeds in this endeavor. I do not want the NBA to devolve to a status in the sporting world one small step above the WWE. I do not think that Vince McMahon would be a worthy successor to David Stern. Nevertheless, this hiring is being blown out of proportion by the PR trolls. General Johnson will succeed in this job based on his ability to create an information network that will allow him to know more of what is going on with his referees than has existed in the past. It will have nothing to do with his service in the Army or his experience in managing people in high stress environments or his engineering expertise.
General Johnson, bonne chance!
In case you missed this one, the NY Jets and the NY Giants are about to drop the news on their season ticket holders that they will need to purchase Personal Seat Licenses in order to keep the privilege of buying season tickets once their new stadium is built. Seating capacity is supposed to be 82,500; every seat will have a seat license that will cost between $1K and $20K. It is a one-time charge and I read one statement where someone called it an investment that will grow with time because no one else can buy that seat without the PSL that you hold. I do not think I will put that investment in my IRA thank you…
As you might imagine, some of the NY fans are less than happy with their ownership about all of this. Their plight and complaints notwithstanding, the NY fans may be getting a bargain here compared to what the Dallas Cowboys will reportedly do to their fans. Dallas too is building a new stadium; I believe it is scheduled to open next season but it may not be until 2010. Here is the deal in Dallas:
Each of the 80,000 seats will have a PSL.
The PSLs in Dallas are not a one-time payment; they expire in 30 years and will have to be renewed then at whatever the market will bear. [Maybe they should be called Personal Seat Leases not Licenses?]
The “cheap” PSLs in Texas will cost $2K (vice $1K in NY).
The “top-shelf” PSLs in Texas will cost $150K (vice $20K in NY)
Comparing those two situations, the owners in New York look like small time con men while the owner in Dallas looks like a major league extortionist. But don’t tell that to the Giants’ or Jets’ fans…
Finally, here is a comment from the St. Paul Pioneer-Press illustrating the difference between the court of public opinion and the courts of law in the US:
“O.J. Simpson came to Minnesota last week to do some fishing with his girlfriend’s relatives. It’s the greatest news to hit the North Star State since the arrival of syphilis in the mid-19th century.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…