Cowboys Reportedly Target of a Point-Shaving Probe Involving Games in 1981-82

DALLAS —  Sitting behind the desk in his 11th-floor office Wednesday, President Tex Schramm of the Dallas Cowboys glared at the headline.

The headline glared back:

NFL, FBI probing allegations Cowboys fixed games for coke It was the lead story in Wednesday morning’s edition of the Miami News. It said that the NFL and FBI are investigating a 3-year-old allegation that five unidentified Cowboys shaved points during games in 1981 and 1982 in exchange for cocaine from reputed drug dealers and bookmakers.

A source close to the Cowboys told The Times that four of the players in the investigation are quarterback Danny White, running backs Tony Dorsett and Ron Springs and wide receiver Tony Hill. According to today’s Dallas Times Herald, the fifth player is wide receiver Butch Johnson. Currently, Springs plays for Tampa Bay and Johnson for Denver.

For one moment, Schramm considered the possibility that the allegation might be true.

“It’s always been a fear of the league’s that a player would get involved in drugs and do something like this,” he said. “I’ve been around long enough to never say something couldn’t happen.”

But that moment passed quickly.

“I don’t think you’re going to find anybody who has a great deal of belief in the story,” he said. “It’s totally ridiculous.”

Consider the source, he said.

According to the Miami News, the source is former FBI special agent Daniel Anthony Mitrione Jr. He reported the alleged point shaving in December, 1982, while he was working under cover on an FBI drug sting in Fort Lauderdale called “Operation Airlift.”

Mitrione has since pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to charges of bribery, conspiracy and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, all in connection with his role in the drug sting.

“I don’t want to sound like someone who protesteth too much,” Schramm said.

“But when you look at the basis for this story--a former member of the FBI who since has pleaded guilty to bribery, conspiracy and drug trafficking--that’s hardly the grounds for putting us in this kind of light.”

It was the light that made Schramm squirm Wednesday. If he did not seem as concerned about the possibility that five of his players had lain down on the job, it was because he did not believe it. It was the potential for further damage to the Cowboys’ image that upset him.

The Cowboys survived “North Dallas Forty” and Hollywood Henderson and even Don Meredith’s singing to become the NFL’s most popular team.

“America’s Team” is the name the league gave to them.

Many of their fans believed that was an understatement.

The joke in Dallas was that the Cowboys’ home, Texas Stadium, has a hole in the roof “so God can watch his favorite team.”

Who else would He root for when the Cowboys had Tom Landry as their coach and Roger Staubach as their quarterback?

Landry is still the coach, but Staubach retired after the 1979 season.

When his career ended, so did the Cowboys’ domination of the NFC.

They went to the Super Bowl five times in the ‘70s but have not been once in the ‘80s. Last season, for only the second time since 1965, they did not make the playoffs.

By then, their white hats already had been stained. In 1983, six Cowboys were named in an FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency investigation into cocaine trafficking in Dallas. Five of the names were made public.

Two players--Hill and defensive end Harvey Martin--were subpoenaed to testify for the defense. Only Hill was called to the stand.

Schramm said that the latest allegation has no connection with that case. But he said he realizes that this story will not die any quicker than the last one, from which the Cowboys became known to the local media as “South America’s Team.”

“These allegations go all over the United States,” Schramm said. “All over the country, you’ll see, ‘Cowboys Being Investigated for Point Shaving.’

“But when it’s found that there’s no basis for the story, you won’t find the headlines in any newspaper. It’ll be lost. That’s unfair. I resent it.

“I’m angry because we’re defenseless. That kind of story, it’s bad for sports, bad for football. We’re not going to be able to erase that.”

Scandals and rumors of scandals are becoming as much a part of the football fan’s life here as Landry’s fedoras.

No angle is left unexplored in this highly competitive media market. Tales of cheating on the college level read like something out of a Dan Jenkins novel.

For the last several months, there have been reports of illegal recruiting by SMU’s football program, culminating when the Mustangs were put on three years’ probation by the NCAA.

Last week, the ABC-TV affiliate in Dallas reported that a local car dealer had given a Texas A&M; quarterback, Kevin Murray, a white Datsun 280Z and a series of $300 checks. The player denied the allegation.

Less than 24 hours later, TCU called a post-midnight press conference to announce that six players, among them star running back Kenneth Davis, had been removed from the team for accepting illegal payments from a booster. A seventh player subsequently was dropped from the team.

After learning of the Cowboys’ troubles from a reporter Wednesday morning, TCU’s sports information director, Glen Stone, called the Cowboy publicist, Doug Todd, to thank him.

“Now, all of the reporters are on your doorstep,” Stone said.

Schramm said he had learned of the allegation last Friday, when a reporter from the Fort Lauderdale News contacted him.

He said he listened intently, then told the reporter, “You’d better be correct or we’re coming after you.”

Schramm said he alerted the Cowboys’ director of counseling, a former FBI agent named Larry Wansley, who informed the players involved.

“Here’s another rumor I’ve heard,” Schramm said. “Somebody supposedly said we hired Wansley because he knew about the point shaving when he worked for the FBI and suppressed it.

“That’s absurd.”

When the Fort Lauderdale News did not carry the story last Sunday, as Schramm said he had been told that it would, he said he assumed the newspaper had not found enough evidence to support the allegation.

On Wednesday, the Cowboys became another episode in Miami vice.

“I don’t know what in the hell to do next,” Schramm said. “I hope the NFL will say there’s no basis to it and get it over with.”

In a prepared statement, NFL spokesman Joe Browne said: “We learned of these allegations about a week ago. We are in the process of reviewing them as we routinely do with reports or rumors of this type.

“However, as we understand it, the primary source of these 1982 charges is a former FBI agent, who has since pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges.”

An FBI spokesman told The Times Wednesday that the Cowboys are not being investigated.

Special agent Manuel Marquez Jr. said, however, that the FBI is conducting an “internal inquiry” to determine whether it should have investigated after the allegation was made in Dec., 1982.

“We want to determine what the information was, how it was assessed and how it was handled,” Marquez said.

According to the Miami News, Mitrione’s report said that two Dallas area men told him during separate undercover meetings that they supplied cocaine to the five Cowboys in exchange for shaving points.

The newspaper said the initial report subsequently was sent by the Miami FBI office to Thomas Kelly, who at the time was the special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI office.

Dallas FBI supervisory agent Jim Siano told the newspaper he received the report and decided no investigation would be conducted. He said he did not consult Kelly.

“I’m the one who handled the report, and I’m the one that decided what to do with it,” Siano said, adding that the information supplied by Mitrione was too vague. “Nothing was done here because nothing should have been done here.

“If we had good information, we would pursue it. Just because they’re Dallas Cowboys means nothing. I get information on judges and senators that comes across my desk . . . and I don’t go running to the special agent in charge with every little thing.”

Schramm said he thought the allegation might have been leaked to the newspaper as part of an attempt to discredit Kelly, who is seeking U.S. Senate confirmation to a high position in the DEA. He recently was nominaed by Attorney General Edwin Meese.

Schramm said that Kelly is a friend of several Cowboy coaches.

“I knew him myself,” Schramm said.

Kelly told the Miami News he would take a polygraph test to prove he knew nothing of the allegation against the Cowboys until recently.

Asked whether the FBI’s internal inquiry might lead to an investigation of the Cowboys, Marquez said, “We don’t discuss possibilities.”

Schramm said the Cowboys will not conduct their own investigation.

“I wouldn’t dignify it by that,” he said testily.

In an effort to lighten the tone, he quickly added, “Enough of them are going on now that I’m not going to conduct my own.”