HOOPS & HOSANNAS: CHARLIE WARD'S STORY

By: Allan Wolper Sportswriter Cries Foul Over Player's Remarks


They stand in a circle, arms clasped around one another's
shoulders, sharing a devout moment. The network TV cameras record
the prayer scene before fading to a commercial.

The message is clear: They are the good guys. There is no hate in
their hearts. They are the tough-love role models of the National
Basketball Association -- a league of the best hoopsters on the
planet. Worship their talent. Use your plastic to buy the Nikes
and Reeboks they promote. Read the sportswriters who have
nurtured them since their first heroic days in high school and
who measure their worth by the number of points they score. It's
a Walt Disney world.

Then along comes a writer who is not part of this cloistered
relationship, and some of those media-made men are revealed as
people with the same ethnic, racial, and religious prejudices as
those who yell their lungs out for them. Which is what happened
when Charlie Ward of the New York Knicks let Eric Konigsberg, a
writer for The New York Times Magazine, into his life and
later into his Christian Bible-study class, which included three
other players.

In that setting, Ward challenged Konigsberg, who is Jewish, to
respond to a centuries-old charge that Jews were the sole
persecutors of Christ and also asked him why Jews continue to
persecute Christians every day -- remarks that Florida
fundamentalists insist would stir not a soul in America's Bible
Belt. "It did not get a whole lot of play here," said Ernie
Stevenson, director of the North Florida Fellowship of Christian
Athletes in Tallahassee, Fla. "We believe that Charlie Ward told
the truth."

But Thomasville, Ga., where Ward grew up, and Tallahassee, where
he became the first African-American quarterback of Florida State
University's football team, taking it to its first national
championship, are not New York. That became apparent after
Konigsberg's encounter with Ward and the other players was
published April 22 in The New York Times Magazine.

Ward was booed in Madison Square Garden at a Knicks playoff game.
The radio sports-talk programs were all about Ward. Were his
comments presented in context? Was he playing devil's advocate in
a Bible class where religious debates open minds rather than
close them? Had Konigsberg violated a trust by disclosing what
went on in that private sanctum?

Tom McDonald, a weekend sports anchor for the Fox-owned WNYW-TV
in New York and, like Ward, a born-again Christian, cringed when
he read the Times Magazine article. McDonald, who was
worried there would be a backlash against his born-again
brethren, sought out Ward to find out what had happened. "Charlie
told me the writer betrayed him," McDonald said. "He said he was
shocked by the way the story came out and what was said about it.
He said he was quoted out of context."

Ward pushed that theme of betrayal even after he apologized. He
argued that Konigsberg presented a distorted picture of his views
on Jews by reporting only the remarks he made in the Bible-class
discussion.

Actually, Konigsberg saved Ward. The writer could have made the
player look a lot worse than he did by including a series of one-
on-one interviews in which Ward repeated his critical comments
about Jews. "Everything was in context," Konigsberg said with a
sigh. "Everything was on the record. I took notes in front of
everyone. Charlie even asked me a number of times when the piece
was going to run."

Ward's fervor is well-known in basketball circles. Harvey Araton,
a columnist for The New York Times, said Ward has been
confronting people in the Knicks dressing room since he came into
the league seven years ago.

"Charlie was constantly in my face asking if I have Christ in my
life," said Araton, who is Jewish and had been a Knicks beat
writer. "He would do it with other reporters, too. He crosses the
line when he does that. The locker room is not a pulpit. I am
offended by what he does in there."

But reporters who have written about Ward's overt religious
activities have kept those incidents to themselves, not wanting
to become part of the story. It's been that way since Ward's
college days.

Gerald Ensley, a sports columnist for the Tallahassee
Democrat, said Ward was a role model as far as athletes go.
"He used to counsel players on the Florida State football team."
Ensley said. "He went to class. He graduated." Ensley also
confessed in a recent column that he and his colleagues had
misled their readers by creating a profound, thoughtful Charlie
Ward out of a grumpy, humorless player with little personality or
insight.

"Blame the media ... for blowing sunshine up your skirt when Ward
was at FSU," Ensley wrote. "Charlie was never perfect. We just
made him sound that way. ... The media made Ward a hero. We do it
with all the athletes. But we did it a little more with Charlie."



Allan Wolper's "Ethics Corner" column appears monthly in
E&P. He can be reached at alfyjournal@msn.com.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.