>> tonight, on "q & a," sports columnist for the washington post "." -- "the washington post." and an overall look at the tarp program. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] c-spa[captions copyright nationl cable satellite corp. 2011]

>> i think you have to because the business of government is really the core of what the paper covers. it's a captive audience, changing audience.

you have to be highly cognizant -- one of the fun things about being a sportswriter in washington is you're read by the most interesting people. i get -- the mail is fascinating. military guys, generals, congressmen, senators, judges. it's fun to play to that audience. it's fun to write to that audience is the greatest laboratory for human behavior. i always tried to do it that way. i think he's right. it's about enics. it's about all sorts of neuroses. i think sports is -- it's so knit into american culture and american life you have to view it from a broad philosophical standpoint as a reflection of all of our ethics and morals and

neuroses. >> during the program we're going to show clips from some hearings to establish the connection between the feds and sports. first aup is ten years old. this is former governor ventura of minnesota. let's watch. >> ok. >> baseball is your business and i emphasize business. you can meet in chicago. conspire to control output of your product in order to maximize profits, and it's perfectly legal. that's not fair, and i think you ought to do something about it. in 1922 when the united states supreme court decided major league baseball was a sport and not interstate commerce, perhaps it was a sport. but today major league baseball is a self-regulating billion dollar monopoly. major league baseball is really no different than opec. it controls supply and it

controls price with absolutely no accountability. the simple, logical and common sense fact is that major league baseball is a business that should be governed by the same laws as every other business. >> first thing you might have noticed is the congress and women's chairs are full, which is not often the case in a hearing like that. good turnout for the subject. what did you hear him say that you were thinking? what were you thinking about what mr. ventura was say something >> first of all i was thinking good show by a former athlete. no. my first thought is he's exactly right and still right. getting right to the heart of the matter. for some reason in the country we have decided as a people to promote professional sports as a great public endeavor. we devote hundreds and millions, billions of dollars to building stadiums for privately held teams.

they have the best of both worlds. they have their cake and eat it too. we spend a good deal of time concentrating on the money that players make and worrying about whether they're overpaid. we stop top think of what owners make and when we give to owners in terms of huge tax breaks and huge wind falls in term of public funding for their stadiums and teams simply because we want to feel the emotional connection with the athletes. >> i want to read back to you some that you wrote. part of a column came out in "the washington post" on february 8th. i will read the first paragraph and get you to comment more. it's a rough morning after for the nfl. the dallas super bowl was a bender but now that the confetti has fall earnings it looks like litter. the hangover hit, splitting headache and sour stomach from the $19 margaritas and the $12 wine and the $10 beers and the rest of the fiscal insanity. is this really what the nfl

wants to become, a divorced from reality debauch? why did you write that? >> well, because i found what happened at that super bowl to be unseemly. 2,000 fans were left out in the cold. they spent thousands of dollars to get to dallas to see the super bowl to discover their seats were no good because jerry jones, the owner of the dallas cowboys and the nfl, tried to cram too many seats into a stadium for the super bowl that -- by the way, stadium that cost $1.1 billion and $300 million of which was federally -- i'm sorry, publicly financed. >> from dallas? >> from arlington, texas. passed a bond issue to give jerry jones $300 million fee and clear to build his taj mahal. it's a beautiful stadium. it's clean. it's safe. it's gorgeous. and it's highly expensive. and the reason he built it was so that he could charge higher ticket prices and more expensive

meals and drinks and parking and , you know, it's a spiral -- financial spiral they're hitting the fans with. on both ends, not just in the stadium, concessions or ticket prices but frankly as taxpayers. >> how widespread is the funding of stadiums around the country in all sports? >> ludicrous, it's everywhere. it's hard to name a stadium particularly in the nfl these days that doesn't have some degree of public financing. in new jersey right now, the new york giants are playing in a brand-new stadium while they -- the state of new jersey still owes $110 million on a stadium that was just demolished to become a parking lot for the new stadium. so there are communities in this country carrying huge demsh some cases hundred million debts on stadiums that are phantoms, that don't even exist anymore that we knocked down to build a new stadium for a sport owner who wants bigger luxury boxes and

more fancy concessions to charge higher prices. >> from your super bowl column you wrote, "for absurdity how about those four navy f-18's flying over the stadium with its retractable roof closed? everybody inside could only see the plane on the video screens. it was strictly a two-second beauty shot. know what it cost taxpayers? i'll tell you, $450,000. the navy justifies the expense by saying it's good for recruiting." >> i love the flyover. i actually think it's a thrilling thing -- i think it's a great recruiting tool for the air force and navy. i have no problem with flyovers in general. the money -- navy people would probably tell you those flights, they were going to fly some kind of training flight that day anyway. what's the harm in flying it over the super bowl? well, what was ludicrous was the roof was closed. you know, the notion of a flyover was a mockery in that instance because nobody in the stadium could actually see it. so i'm not sure how great it was

for recruiting, spectators inside the closed dome. >> we see so much of these flyovers at sporting events. do the sporting teams and i know nascar does it all the time. nascar -- cars themselves are sponsored by the military. is that ever talked in zphong >> never heard anybody discuss the flyover really until the super bowl when it struck everybody in dallas was a little odd that we had these marvelous airplanes sailing over a closed roof. >> what do you think of the idea of recruit money being spent at these sporting events? >> you know i think -- you know what, it's fun. you can't get -- some things are just fun. some of this stuff we want to pay for. i'm not saying every dime

taxpayers spend on baseball teams or football teams o'nba teams is ill spent. i think a lot of us love these teams. we love the spectacle of it and i think there's nothing wrong with spending some money on this stuff, even public money on this stuff. what i think we need to do is ask tougher questions about what the right seemly levels of that spending are. there's a lot of hidden cost to taxpayers and ticket buyers that they are not always alert to. my thing is not so much we should spend public money on sports in this country. my thing is let's explain to bheam we're really spending -- what we're really doing here. when arlington, texas, helps build the taj mahal of football stadiums to the tune of $1.1 billion, well, something else doesn't get built. one of the things that didn't get built in arlington, texas, is a light rail system. you can't get to arlington except by car. the bond issue that taxpayers

passed to help finance these stadiums, it means there's money not going to be spent on something else. it means bigger deficits. deficits are killing states. why should new jersey be strapped with $110 million debt on a stadium that no longer exist when's they are laying off cops and firefighters and public schools don't have supplies for kids? these are questions we probably ought to be asking a little more frequently when we talk about spending public money for this great culture celebration we call football. >> where do you live? >> new york city. although i've lived in washington on and off for many years. my base now is new york city. >> why new york? >> i was raised there. my dad moved us there when i was three and it's been my home pretty much since then on and off except for the decade i spent here in washington. so it's where i'm from.

>> your father dan jenkins for those who don't follow sports still writes some but wrote what? >> he was a senior writer at "sports illustrated" for 35 years. that was his main gig. but he also became a very successful novelist. i wrote a great novel called "semitough" that was a big best seller in the '70's and got made into a movie with burt reynolds. so that would probably be the most notable thing people would recognize him for. but he's a hall of fame sportswriter. he writes for "golf digest" magazine now. he's probably one of the greatest golf writers that ever lived. he knows more about golf than any human being on the planet. >> here's the cliff of senator joe biden back in 2003. >> the bowls have a deep and important history part of football. we all know that. and i think everyone wants to make that go away. >> that's not true, by the way. there's a whole lot of us in the

east who don't give a damn, really, about the rose bowl. there's a whole lot of us in the east that don't give a damn about the sugar bowl. there's a whole lot of us in the east that don't give a damn about the orange bowl. if they're the only things to play n. we care about them a lot. but there's a whole lot of us in the east that would much rather see a playoff system. so i understand but i want to know what is the mechanical difference? why mechanically will it not work? why functionally would it not work in terms of stress on players or student quality of life? or all of these other things. >> there's no function reason why it couldn't woveraget that's correct. but the desire to keep by others, to keep the bowls intact is what's leaning in that direction. now what about the idea of having a post bowl championship? that's -- >> what about the idea of having a post bowl game after the championship? >> that's what i just said. >> oh, ok, i'm sorry. i misunderstood you. i apologize. >> here's the question that has to be answer fundamental that

makes sense. some people claim that by doing that, you diminish the interest of fan attendance and most especially television media interest in it. if there were a post bowl game. is that true? i don't know. i think that has to be marketed tested. >> and myles brand died in 2009 of pancreatic cancer but the issue still exists. i see this all the time in articles, b.c.s. what does it stand for? >> bowl championship series. >> and is that what he's talking about there? >> that's what he's talking about, bowl championship series. some people say you should take the c out and just call it the b.s. that's my view. it is a rigged system that was devised by a handful of very powerful football schools via their conferences to horde the vast majority of bowl game revenue and concentrated in the hands of large universities that

spend a lot of money funding their football programs. it's not a fair way or equitable way of determining the national championship because it locks out a good half of the competitors in college football, never have access to these bowl games because they don't really belong to the right conferences. it's like say fg you don't live in newport, rhode island, you can't come to the ball. >> is that the kind of subject that should be brought out in a hear something >> it should because a lot of the schools involved are large, public state universities and it's very costly to the universities that don't have access to this rigged system. the bowl revenues have grown exponentially in the last 25 years. it means that you're athletic department could be facing a serious deficit if you don't gain access to one of these

bowls. if you do gain access to one of these bowls you have better facilities, better locker rooms, more goodwill from alum who has proven when a football team wins and makes it into one of these football games giving these pum, better medical care for student athletes, better academic support for student athletes. it affects a whole range of issues and state universities that have access to this group don't really want to admit that but it's true. it's a form of piracy if you ask me. >> what kind of column gets the most attention back to you? >> the super bowl column, the jerry jones/taj mahal super bowl column was about as much response i ever had on a column. i was surprised by it but i think the reason it got so much response was was the fan is starting to get a little fed up with being leaned on financially by the league. the common sense now for going

to an nfl game -- expense for going to an nfl game for family of four is astronomical. the nfl is pricing the average fan out of the gameday experience. it's gotten to be -- it's a $700 to $900 proposition depending on where you want to see the game to take yourself and your spouse and two children to see an nfl game. so a lot of the response that i got from that column was about fans feeling abused by the nfl. >> except if you watched the chatter about the washington redskins in this town, how many thousands of people in line for seats? >> well, we're not sure how long the waiting list for redskins tickets really is. that's a debate -- disputeable topic. but the fact is the nfl fan hasn't shown yet the league found the bottom of their pocket or bottom of their goodwill. the truth is if fans are being

abused financially it because they keep coming back for more. in some respects you start twonder if like nfl football sort of feels like crack. people just keep coming back and coming back and coming back and you go when are people going say that's too much money or i'm not being treated very well with these games. >> this stadium here used to be the largest. is it still the large sneft >> i think depending on how many seat got crammed into cowboy stadium for the super bowl, you could claim cowboy stadium, i think they wanted to hit the 100,000 mark there. so i'm not certain. >> this is in the shadow of the capital. was that stadium built by taxpayer money? >> fedex field i think had some -- i can't remember now it's been so long. i'm not sure. >> we did watch the washington nationals baseball stadium come up for -- that's a conversation one of the d.c. were going to

fund it. did they fund that? >> partly. taxpayers partly fund that stadium. it remains to be seen where that stadium is going to do for business what was promised. the whole idea of bringing baseball to washington quite apart from the fact it's lovely to have it here for the residents was it was going to revitalize a whole segment of the town commercially. i don't know that that's happened yet. we will see. it could take quite a while noor to pan out. studies, economic studies of the impact stadiums by real economists and not by leagues. leagues try to pass around studies but they're really commission studies. real economic impact studies show these stadiums pretty much don't bring what the league tells you they're going to bring. they cost us all money. if we're willing to pay it, that's fine. i think there's an argument for paying it.

i think it does a lot for morale and a lot for the espri of the city. i think culturally there's a lot to be said for having baseball on washington, d.c. it's the nation's capital. but the cost, don't tell me it's not going to cost. >> if you were an elected member of congress to the senate and had you control over a committee -- or not control but you ran a chairman of a committee, that had nothing do with sports, how much would you bring sport figures before your committee? >> i would bring them all the time and i would ask them repeatedly, insistantly, why aren't you giving back more to your community? this community has given you a home. it gives you the dollars out of its citizens' pockets and it gives you huge tax breaks and it gives you public financing. why aren't you doing more for public school kids in this town? why aren't you doing more for arts programs? if you want public funding from a city like washington, d.c. or

new york city or baltimore or dallas or arlington, i think there should be an exchange there. i don't think you should get a massive tax break and $300 million free cleern to build luxury boxes without giving something other than fielding a team. give something back to this community. i'm not just talking about the sort of bringing out half a dozen players to read to public school kids once every two, three months. i'm talking about putting money into this community, into the public institutions of this community. again, you're the chairman of the committee. if you could change a law, what would you change? >> well, i mean, laws aren't always the best -- they're like big claw hammers. lays are big, clumsy things. i don't know that they -- i think laws can't cure necessarily what's going on here. i think that -- first of all i

think the culture of sports leagues, and i'm talking ownership culture, should take a good look at itself and say strks seemly for 30 billionaires whose league revenue is $9.3 billion, which is what the nfl revenue is, by the way, roger goodell the commission commissioner, wants to grow revenue to $25 billion by the year 2025. you grow revenue by doing what? jacking up prices aemergency other things, building bigger stadiums, which means skk more communities for more public money to build bigger stadiums. >> should government try to stop those increases? >> i think government ought to stop those increases number one but number two, if they are willing as a community to give some public money to projects like that, again ask for something in return more than just keeping the football team in washington or in your community. but that's the original point.

i think owners should examine their responsibility to the community. you know, they're barrens. they act like barons. they live basically in the back room of the palm restaurant. i find more and more the behavior of professional sports owners to be unseemly in the sense that they want hundreds of millions of dollars from their communities and yet they don't really participate in the problems of those communities. so i think that one of the things we can do is ask these people, you know, to really live in their cities. >> will they talk to you when you call them? >> i've had exactly two conversations with dan snyder. i've requested the owner of the washington redskins, i've requested others that have been turned down. we don't have a great relationship. i'm a tough critic of his in town.

other owners, i have met and spoken with jerry jones. i like him. i don't dislike these people, by the way. >> you like dallas? >> i'm not sure. i guess my main point about some of these owners is they can be very good people but i think they live in a bubble sometimes. i think they're generally out of touch, particularly lately in the envelope nfl with the average fan, with the average fan experience and with the problems of their communities. i don't know how you just if you're john mara and steve tisch, who own the new york giants, who are good people, but don't know what they're thinking in demolishing a stadium that is still carrying $110 million in debt and building a new stadium when newark, new jersey, is right over there. if you want to, you can really see the problems of that community and can really see what deficits are doing to that community. >> 2005, here's john mccain.

will you see a lot of people on the dais that you recognize. >> houpt house of representatives some time ago had a hearing and some of the witnesses were the family members of young people who had committed suicide while under the influence of these substances. and that's really what it's all about. there are some people who will say congress has no business in this issue. would i make two points -- one, we have enacted -- the professional sports have not acted. two, that we have an obligation to young people to do everything in our power to prevent then from succumbing to this terrible attraction in the belief that the only way they can perform at a major league professional level is if they ingest these substances. ask any high school coach in america and as i have many high

school coaches who have told me the same thing, i want to finally say we don't want to have to act legislatively. we know this is a labor and management issue but we have the additional obligations and the fact that major league baseball in particular has still not been able to act is what motivates but we also need to ask what's going on with other professional sports. >> you saw a lot of people there. who were they, by the way? >> everybody from bud seal illing, the commissioner of baseball -- >> don fear was there from the union. >> yep. all the usual characters and suspects. baseball was hauled before congress to explain itself. on drug abuse. the interesting thing about that

hearing, that was one of the instances where i actually feel like we're getting that one wrong. when we -- capitol hill is a great tool for some things and when citizens are cranky on a subject and want to hear from the people making you cranky, it's great to have these hearings. oun fortunately what could also come out is a mob mentality. i think the steroids issue, we've gotten into a mob mentality and haven't done very hard and complicated thinking on drugs. drugs and sport is a complex issue because it's really only reflective of one problem. athletes aren't the league users of steroids. teenagers are using steroids across the board to look better, not to play sports but lose weight or shape their bodies. that is not a sports issue. that's a culture issue. lindsay lohan probably ought to be hauled up to talk about drug

abuse also. drug use 1234 in our cultures, sports is picking up the tab by that and i think it's unfair. >> what do you mean by that? >> blaming athletes for doing some americans do every single day. let's say you're a student and you have a big paper due. have you to stay up all night. you might take a little something to stay up. let's say you're a lawyer with a very big case to argue. you may take a little something to help you stay up all night or feel a little sharper. let's say you're a steel worker with a backache. you may take a little something and you're allowed to take a little something. people performance enhance in this culture all the time to do a better job every day. athletes for some reason or demonized by this. most of the athletes, i suspect, are using substances to repair injuries or to try to feel a little bit better or perform a little bit better or play hurt the way we demand of them. i think they get a real raw deal

on this subject and i sympathize with them enormously. i think countless citizens and countless professions performance enhance without blame and are even expected to. >> a couple years ago, what, 2002? >> boy, was it that long ago, yeah? he won in 1999, i think. >> lance armstrong, you wrote this book with him. >> yes. >> what's your take on his steroid controversy? >> i think he's my friend so i believe him when he says he's clean, when what you do with friends. we talked about it. i asked him point blank. he said he hasn't performance enhanced and i believe him. i think he's an unbelievable physical specimen. i've seen it firsthand. i've seen him work. i've seen his body at work. i believe he won cleanly. could i swear on a stack of bibles? no. but i asked him and i accept his answer as an honest one. >> what was your reaction to

"the wall street journal" investigation of him? >> i think floyd land is, don't believe a word he says. have i very good reason not to believe he a word he says. i don't find his accusation credible. i think he had a real ax to grind. the interesting thing about the accusations so far in every instance against lance have come from people who had arguments with him. legal arguments with him. until one of these accusations is ratified by someone who doesn't have an ax to grind f. that happens i will say, hey, you know, what he was guilty, he lied to me, he lied to everybody else. that said, you know, i real like lances a human being. i really do. i think he's a good person. nothing can alter my money on that, nothing. >> how long did you work with him/ >> couple years. we did two books together. we work aid two good years on and off and remained good friends. i respect him a lot.

nothing can change that either. he's done more in the fight against cancer. he's done more fund-raising. he's done more raising of morale, raising of hope than everybody in the fight against cancer. i will always respect him for that. >> why do you who write your own column and has your own opinions spend so much time with others and helping them right their books? >> because i enjoy it. >> how much have you done? >> i have done two books with pat summitt, another good friend of mine, legendary women's basketball coach at the university of tennessee. she got me started. i was a much younger, less accomplished writer and she was looking for someone to help write her book and i got the job and it paid real good but more importantly i got a great friend and experience. i loved do it. i loved ghost writing. it's a funny genre. it's interesting to write in somebody else's voice and see life through their eyes.

the people i worked with are parkts is lance armstrong, dean smith at north carolina. it's like getting to drive a bentley and rolls-royce and porch. have you to get it back tend. but it's foun live the tour de france or live a national championship. or live integrating college basketball in the 1960's. those were fascinating projects and i would start them all again tomorrow. >> of your nine books which ones sold the most? >> lance has sold i don't even know how many millions of books. i've got copies of the different languages it's translitted into. eye enormously proud of that. everything i say about lance you have to take with a grain of salt. he's my great friend and gave me one of the great successes i have ever had. so i'm inclined to believe him because i love him and he's given me so much. tpwhaut book honestly i think

has been translated into 15 languages. still get mail from cancer patients. there are 8 million people with cancer who feel that book is doing them good, some of them. so i love the books i have written on my own. i'm probably proudest of them but that's a close second. >> let's go back to the government relationship with sports and we're right now in the middle of this nfl possible lockout by the owners, players, decertification of the union and all of that. if you're not a follower but you're going to hear about this, can you give us a synopsis of what this is all about? >> an argument between billionaires and millionaire sts first way to put it. owners are billionaires plainers are millionaires and right in the middle is 9.3 billion of total revenue.

owners feel like too much is going into the player pockets instead of their own pockets. rye now the way the deal is set up, owners take the first billion off the top to offset expenses. >> distributed equally among the 32 teams? >> yes, to offset stadium expenses, all sorts of different expenses. after that i think split is 58% to the players after that. it works tout about a 50/50 split if you take the first billion, give it to the owners and split the rest. it works out to pretty much an even division of the total revenue. after certain expenses are factored in t. could get complicated but that's basically the deal. the owners want to take an additional $1 billion. that's what they want that.s0 represents if you do the math about an 18% pay cut for the players. this is not a strike.

most people -- not most people but a lot of people at home are still thinking of this as some sort of work stoppage strike. it's not. players would go back to work in an instant. they happy with the existing contract. they're not asking for anything more. owners are saying we need another billion dollars to help operate our teams to grow the game to feel more comfortable about our profit margins, so on be so forth. that's basically the deal. fans sitting at home probably need to think about it in these terms -- do you want to pay your money to the owners or do you want to pay your money to the players? >> let's go back to the sports broadcasting act of 1962, which exempted all of these sport teams from the antitrust laws. first of all, why did we as a country exempt all of these sport teams from the antitrust law? >> it's a decision we made, baseball division, clip you showed of jesse ventura talking about the baseball decision,

that decision was clear the supreme court basically said it's a national treasure and national possession and we're going to treat it as not an ordinary business. to quote "the godfather ii" it's the business we chose. it's a decision we made as a culture be -- and as a country and as a government. if it's the right one, don't know. we allow teams to operate and give them breaks. it's just what we decided to do. >> by exempting them from the antitrust act, what did they do that order businesses can't do? >> they can negotiate collective tv contracts for instance. that's one of the big things they can do. 32 owners can act in concert to get their tv agreements. >> they couldn't do that if they weren't exempted? >> that's my understanding. i'm not a lawyer but maybe there's something here i'm not understanding but my

understanding is >> and they couldn't do what they're doing right now as owners. they couldn't get together sane we want another billion collectively off the top? they couldn't have that agreement in the first place? >> actually, one of the things going on here is there's some maneuvering by the football players union to be certified as a union so the players would then give up thursday rights as a union, legal rights under labor law and then that that would put them in the position to sue the nfl as trust, bring an antitrust lawsuit against the nfl. that's a possibility here. if the owners are serious about locking the players out, that could happen. they lost the last antitrust case with reggie white and other players brought individual suits, the last time we had this degree of labor disagreement between owners and players. >> do you think bewould be better off or rather than ask it that way, which way are we

better off as a country, having the antitrust exemption or not? >> i don't know. i think it's worked pretty well so far. again, i think we decided as a country we love these games so much that we're willing to make certain financial and public sacrifices for them. it's funny, i covered the olympics in athens a few years ago. when you go back to greece and you see the ruins and you do a little homework before you go cover that olympics, one of the things i read was the great hamilton book about ancient greece and one of the things she says is -- one of the things we know best about this ancient culture is how they played. so sometimes when you look around at these enormous stadiums, try to think of them in terms of archeology. eons from now when people start digging, one of the things they

will find is enormous structures and they're going to understand how important they were to us. >> did you play sports in college? >> i played in high school. i smoked in college. >> what did you play in high school? >> i was a basketball player and volleyball player and softball player. >> what do you mean you smoked in college? >> i took up cigarettes in college and hab thate lasted several years afterwards and then i quit. >> why did you do that? >> i started reading too many books. you know, it was something -- i had smoked a little bit in high school. it was the '70's, late '70's, early '80's. i smoked too much to be a college athlete. >> when you write, what kind of atmosphere are you in and where do you write the stpwheft >> i write best at the new york public library, which i have adopted as my office. there's a concentration that takes over there. there's a beautiful -- several -- the main reading room is gorgeous but there are several

smaller reading rooms, history room is where i've done a lot of research on my books over the years and it's become my real office in new york city. >> how often a week do you write a column? >> i write usually minimum of one a week. mostly one a week. there are weeks where i'm at an event where i will write every day, i will write three or four. or at an olympics write 20 columns in three weeks. >> when you write on a deadline, where do you do it? >> in my home in new york with an easy chair and laptop on my lap sometimes or at an event, depending. but generally at home >> what's your favorite sport to write about? >> it changes year to year. there are some when figure skating was the greatest in the world whfment brian boitano was winning gold medals on fighting the great canadian skater, that

was one of the greatest head-to-head competitions i ever covered. there are some years when the nfl seems like the greatest sport in the world. and there were some fabulous years when golf, a ryder cup year if the match is close can be -- you think golf is the greatest sport on earth. it changes. characters change it. tennis, i love covering andre agassi and pete sampras and their rivalry. i got the tail end of chris evert and martina navratilova, which is probably the gold standard for a great rivalry. and two fabulously interesting people to cover. >> you were nominated for a pulitzer prize while at the post for the lynn bias story. twhaffs? >> he was the top pick for the boston celtics and star basketball player from the university of maryland. at the time i was covering maryland basketball for "the washington post" as a young beet

writer. had gone to the nba draft, watched him get drafted, interviewed him, spent a few minutes afterwards and then we both went home. he went back to the maryland campus and went to my apartment on dupont circle and got a call the next morning he overdosed on cocaine and was dead. we spent months trying to find out exactly what had led him to do that to himself, who had sold it to him. >> did you find out? >> yeah, a guy went on trial named brian tribble, who was eventually acquitted. people wanted to blame somebody. it's funny, i remember an editor saying, it seems to me that the real story here is who killed len bias and i remember thinking to myself then, len bias killed len bias and i think that's the truth. it was an agonizing story to cover. greatest story in sports i

covered. he was a beautiful kid and beautiful basketball player. that was the saddest truth of all. >> what year? >> gosh -- >> we can back of '98 when they passed the drug law. >> what year was it? >> '82? >> no, i think it was '85 or '86. >> what i was leading up to is what impact did it have on the '88 drug law we passed? people call it the len bias act. >> unfortunately one of the thing len's death did was wake people up cocaine was a killer. right up until len bias died, people told themselves that, you know, there was a time when people said cocaine wasn't addictive. remember that? the, quote, good drug. it made you energetic and smart and people didn't really realize yet, i think, the real rage of it. the toll of it.

of that i think we understood. >> do you think that law was passed because of len buy snouse >> you know, i don't recall. i think my take on it at the time, i was so wrapped up in his death and what it did to the maryland basketball program and all of his teammates and kids, i think i was probably more caught up in the personal toll of it than i was in the broader, legal impact of it. >> here some is excerpts of the hearing and this one is 2007 -- no, it actually was 2008. congressman bobby rush from chicago. self-scommantory. -- self-explanatory. >> do you support the federal legislation that will promulgate rules and regulations requiring professional and amateur sport associations to adopt the mitchell report recommendations? >> i comb speak for my own sport

and the answer is yes. >> mr. fehr? >> we believe the matter ought to be handled in collective bargaining. i'm not in a position respond for any other sport. >> for your own individual sport. mr. stern? >> we believe the matter should be handled by collective bargaining between the players and the association. >> mr. hunter? >> i adopt mr. sterning's comment. >> mr. goodell? >> yes, we do. we believe as i stated in my testimony that we are doing the vast majority of the recommendations the senator made. >> i agree to the extent it should be collective bargaining. >> mr. bettman? >> i believe this should be a matter of checkive bargaining especially because the mitchell report was focused on one particular sport and did not have the benefit of looking at the practices and history of other sports. >> mr. kelly? >> no.

>> what did you hear there? >> a lot of the same thing. first of all, a lot of agreement. i like bettman's answer the best. i think one of the things -- again, as we talked about earlier, once you start having hearings on capitol hill, this mob mentality can develop. dissent can get drowned out and so can the other side of the issue. i think drugs and sports -- when bettman said treat each sport as its own sport, i think that's a great point. one of the things i actually was dace pointed in was when the pga tour adopted a drug testing policy. golf operates on an honor code. players turn themselves in. the culture of that sport -- and it's a wonderful culture -- is conscience will bloom in a vacuum. if you put players out on a golf course and you tell them they're responsible for their own score and own ball and following the rules of the game, it's a

wonderful thing golf has culturally. a drug testing system cheats them like cheats. it totally contrary to the rest of the ethic in that sport. i was disappointed to see government reduced and sort of publicly pressured into adopting a drug testing system that was real antithesis to everything the game was about. >> looking at the men, all men sitting at that table, one thing first of all, roger goodell, nfl commissioner's father was senator charles goodell, who was on capitol hill from the state of new york, republican turned democrat. but the reason i bring that up is if they're talking about the mitchell report, which was after senator george mitchell -- >> right. >> what is your opinion of that mitchell report and the idea of having a former senator asked to do this? >> i think george mitchell was a great guy. i think the mitchell report was

baseball's attempt to look like it was doing something when they understood it would be profoundly unfair to actually punish the people singled out in that report. unfortunately federal investigators have leaked names. grand jury testimony has been leaked. these investigations into steroids in baseball and professional sports has led to i think serious, serious violations of people's personal rights. i think the mitchell report was a pandora's box that then led to a lot of what i consider to be really unfortunate stigmatizing of people. i understood why they did it. i thought it was well intentioned. i think there's a real witch-hunt mentality when it comes to athletes and steroids. i legally do. >> what's your opinion when you see those men sitting at the table. you probably snow them all. i know this is a broad question,

representing their different sports to the federal government? >> i think they do a good job. roger goodell is an incredibly intelligent man. david stern say smart guy and personable, the nba commissioner. i don't know bettman. but he seems to be a very strong leader for his sport. >> what sport? >> hockey. he brought hockey back from a very serious labor stop eafpblg and labor issue -- stoppage and labor issue. i'm in the a big fan of selig's? >> why not? >> because don't know him, never met him but his public statements have been wishy-washy. i think he could have managed the whole steroids in baseball better. sometimes the federal government's intrusion is wrong. sometimes there are matters that aren't the federal government's business and -- >> here's an amateur quote -- in quote marks, sport i want to ask you about.

this is eye report that actually came out today from "sports illustrated" and cbs. and i will just read you the first paragraph. few football programs had a more difficult season in 2010 than the university of pittsburgh, led by running back dion lewis, a doak walker candidate. the panthers were the preseason pick to win the big east and go to the b.c.s., there it is again -- bowl championship series, but things quickly began unraveling on and off the field. one more sentence. in a spans between mid-july and late september, four players were arrested for four separate violent crimes. and this report goes on to talk about the top 25 "sports illustrated" teams showing pittsburgh players charged with police records, 22 of them and goes, iowa's 18, arkansas 18, boise state, 16, penn state, 16, virginia tech, 13. is this the value the fact these teams either didn't know or

report that their play hers previous crimes? >> i think tace value. it's something you feel and suspect. if you cover a lot of college football, you read isolated account of crimes being committed on campus. think the story concludes 7% of athletes at the top 25 football programs have some sort of criminal record. sexual assault is a concern. it's been a nagging question for years dorks college athletes commit crimes against women at a proportionally higher rate? you would be tempted to think so from reading the newspaper sometimes. that's a good question. and we're certainly more concerned if a normal student has a criminal record and is on campus. that's something everybody wants to know, right? if there's somebody in a freshman dorm that has a

criminal record and you're a parent or freshman living in the dorm, you would like to know that. >> vurped about -- are you surprised about -- >> i'm not surprised. i'm surprised -- the thing that's most surprising is those teams don't win more f you're going to be that bald facedly ambitious to keep a guy on a campus with a criminal record because he's a good athlete, boy, you better win games. you better do better than pitt did. >> two of the teams, stanford had one and t.c.u. had zero, did well -- >> texas christian university is my mind the real national champion this year. they won the rose bowl. gary patterson's a terrific coach who appears to run his program right with real discipline. any great coach will tell you discipline is the linchpin of a championship team. what stuns me is that schools

think they might actually be getting ahead by keep something guys with discipline problems around. that's a proven loser and it's kind of desperate, so -- >> we're in the month of march. does march hasness mean anything to you? >> oh, yeah, it's the greatest period of temporary insanity in the world, you know. i love it. >> you referred in one of your columns to the college sports being nothing but a farm team for professional sports. >> that's true enough but i'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. we always act like that's a bad thing. i don't know why. college campuses or farm systems for all sorts of professions, aren't they? >> what do you think of the different concepts that young players ought to have to stay out for a year and get their grades and -- >> i'm all in favor of freshman and eligibility. i think it would cure a good 50% of the ills in college sports overnight. the only reason it's not happening is economics is

because universities don't want to pay the scholarship cost and the cost associated with supporting an athlete on campus when he's not bringing in revenue. and that's it. that's the only reason. freshmen were ineligible for most of the history of college sports in this country. the ncaa voted it out. a few decades ago for economic reasons and that was a bad decision. frankly, you know, a really strong leader of the ncaa probably should make it their very first priority to forth a consensus on this. every school president in the country knows it's the right tchoing. every coach knows it's the right thing to do. >> what's your reaction to these athletes that w.h.o. come to college and after a year or two leave to go to the pros? >> their prodigies and i think they enrich the campus while they're there. if they are participating in their college life, kevin durant was a classic example. he went to the university of texas. he's a arguably about to become

the greatest basketball player in the world. i think he's very close to overtaking kobe bryant for that mantel. went to the university of texas for one year. loved it. and then left and went to the nsh. i see nothing wrong it. he had i great time while he was there. they loved having him. he was exposed to a college campus and got to have one more year of a normal youth before he became the great player that he is. i -- i would like to see him stay two years frankly. i think if you commit -- i would like to see a freshman ineligibility ruling so when kevin durant commits to texas, it's actually a two-year commitment. he sits out one year while he finds his classrooms and second year he plays and then he's out. >> we're about out of time. how many kids in your family? >> three, two brothers. >> older, younger? >> one twin brother and one year younger. so it was sort of like being

triplets and outnumbered. >> what do they do for a live something >> very interesting guys. my younger brother is a surfing photographer who lives down in costa rica and my twin brother was working at a contractor for a while in san diego, in the san diego area and now he's living up in vermont feeding farm animals. zn you grew up -- were actually born and grew up in what city? >> born in ft. worth, texas. i'm a texan by birth affinity and i grew up in new york city. i was raised in new york. >> how long did you stay in texas? >> really only three years but we went back every summer and still do. my family live there's again. >> are you married? >> no, sir. >> have you ever been married? >> nope. >> do you have any children? >> no kids, nothing. dogs. >> what part of this job of going over the world for sports do you not like? >> you know, i guess i don't like -- the only part of it i

don't absolutely love is the part where you have to write critically of people. that's not fun. it's not fun to scold people in public. it's not fun to write something that you know must hurt. that part of it i have qualms about and it's not easy and i strug well that one. >> author and sports columnist for "the washington post," sally jenkins, thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> for a d.v.d. copy of this program call 12-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q & a.org. q&a are also available at c-span

podcasts. >> next, british prime minister david cameron takes questions in the house of commons. then a congressional oversight hearing examines of the trouble asset relief program known as tarp. and another chance see "q&a" with columnist sports columnist sally jenkins. tomorrow on "washington journal" hotline executive editor josh crarbar talks about how they're funding health care, money on high-speed rail and unions. maggie gallagher for the national organization for marriage and brian moulten of the union rights campaign discuss efforts by house republicans to defend the law that defends federal recognition

of same-sex marriage, known as the defense of marriage act. and pat daltearnings chief operating officer of the government accountability office discusses a goo report on overlapping federal programs. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> in four weeks' time -- in four weeks' time, in four weeks' time his own cuts program, the darling program, comes into place, 14 billion pounds of cuts and only 2 billion less than we proposed starting in four weeks' time. it's about time he got off his opportunistic bandwagon start producing some policy. >> and now from london, the prime minister's questions from the british house of commons. this week british prime minister david cameron and opposition leader ed miliband discuss the u.k.'s response