They Won’t Have Tricky Rick to Kick Around Much Longer

Surfer-haired Rick Neuheisel has so often parsed and pushed the letter and limits of football law during his eight-year tenure as a major college coach, he might as well have titled his playbook “Legally Blond.”

A graduate of UCLA football, USC Law, the Machiavellian Monkey-Business Institute and for now still practicing his craft at the University of Washington, Neuheisel has made a science of running his fine-toothed comb through the NCAA manual.

So Rick Neuheisel, of all people, didn’t think kicking in $5,000 to an NCAA basketball tournament office pool was wrong?

“I never in my wildest imagination thought I was breaking an NCAA rule,” Neuheisel told the Seattle Times.

You might buy that answer from an 18-year-old freshman with little world experience; not from a 42-year-old lawyer who ought to know his habeas from his corpus.

Neuheisel is in a fight to save his job after the Seattle Times reported the Washington coach had participated in an NCAA tournament office pool the last two years.

Neuheisel reportedly contributed $5,000 and claimed about $20,000 for picking Maryland to win the 2002 tournament.

Neuheisel has wriggled off a lot of hooks in his day, but we can’t see how he survives this -- let alone explains it to the IRS.

Although office pools are not illegal in the state of Washington, so long as a bookmaker is not involved, Neuheisel appears to have violated an NCAA rule.

The NCAA manual stipulates that coaches, staff members and athletes shall not knowingly “solicit or accept a bet on any intercollegiate competition for any item (e.g., cash, shirt, dinner) that has tangible value.”

Given that Neuheisel has essentially admitted to this violation, the case against him appears to be a slam-dunk. And given his previous off-field transgressions and the 10-car pileup of scandals in college sports this year, Washington may have no recourse but to fire Neuheisel, or ask him to resign.

If that happens, Neuheisel will join Mike Price, Larry Eustachy, St. Bonaventure, Georgia and Fresno State on this year’s trash heap of disgraced coaches and/or academic institutions.

The timing for Neuheisel could not have been worse, considering public and political tolerance for wayward coaches has pretty much reached saturation point. Also, nothing irks the NCAA more than charges of gambling -- even if it was an office pool -- for the organizational monolith believes all gambling is evil that eats at the bedrock of competitive athletics.

It helps little that Neuheisel’s story broke on the same day Court TV was providing gavel-to-gavel coverage of Adrian McPherson’s trial in Tallahassee. McPherson is the former Florida State quarterback accused of betting on college football.

You know it is serious business when Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden is called to the witness stand, raises his right hand and swears to tell the dad-gum truth.

You wonder what Neuheisel can say now that can possibly save him.

Even if he says it, should anyone believe him?

Only months ago, Neuheisel denied interest in the vacant San Francisco 49er coaching job. He recanted only when a Seattle reporter ran into him at the airport ... in San Francisco ... after Neuheisel had interviewed with the 49ers.

Neuheisel’s credibility meter, even before this, was running dangerously low. In January, he was formally reprimanded by the American Football Coaches Assn. for not showing enough remorse for 50 minor NCAA sanctions levied against him while at Colorado.

Pacific 10 Conference football coaches have been wary of Neuheisel almost since Day 1. He was hired at Washington in January 1999. A month later, reports surfaced that he had improperly contacted five recruits.

How could Neuheisel not know that office pools were against the rules?

Young, gloriously gifted, some might say smug, and once a red-rocket riser in the coaching business, Neuheisel has made an art form of rules interpretation and obfuscation, all while turning out winners at Colorado and Washington and many opposing coaches against him.

Neuheisel is the kind of coach who would circumvent a rule that prevented visual contact with a high school recruit by flying to the recruit’s town, driving to the kid’s house, calling the kid on his cell phone and then asking him to look out the window.

Neuheisel would pull this move at night, in the dark, and technically claim there was no visual contact.

Washington Athletic Director Barbara Hedges has been one of Neuheisel’s strongest allies and has covered his back for years.

Yet, if the latest charges are true, Hedges may be backed into a corner.

The shame is that Neuheisel really is a talent, a prodigy who always had more brainpower than arm power -- even though the walk-on quarterback once led UCLA to a Rose Bowl victory.

As a coach, he is 66-30 in eight years, divided evenly at Colorado and Washington, with a Rose Bowl victory over Purdue to cap an 11-1 season in 2000.

Washington slipped to 7-6 last season, but this year’s team has reloaded and figures to compete for the Pac-10 title and a bowl championship series berth.

Neuheisel’s missteps have already proven costly. For years, his destiny pointed toward a return south to coach UCLA, but he botched that chance last fall when minor NCAA sanctions handed down against him roughly coincided with Bob Toledo’s firing in Westwood.

The taint, coupled with his $1.2-million salary, took Neuheisel out of the UCLA equation, even as he privately lobbied behind the scenes.

If Neuheisel is forced out at Washington, we easily see him seeking refuge in the NFL, which would likely open its arms to him. There, Neuheisel would join college castoff George O’Leary, who sought refuge in Minnesota after his trumped-up Notre Dame resume debacle, and possibly Mike Price, looking for a job after his firing at Alabama.

The good thing about the NFL is, there aren’t as many rules there.

Knowing Neuheisel, he’ll land upright with a plum job on lakefront property.

Also know that if it does end badly for him at Washington, well, it didn’t have to.