DATE: Wednesday, July 16, 1997              TAG: 9707160650

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO

                                            LENGTH:   75 lines

WRITER'S SUIT IS A WIMPY RESPONSE TO CALIPARI'S SLUR

A newspaper writer in New Jersey is embarrassing his profession. He is doing a disservice to the men and women who, in the pursuit of numbing cliches and bad syntax, willingly place themselves in the line of fire. He is demoralizing people who risk verbal and sometimes physical abuse from coaches and athletes for the greater glory of, if you'll pardon the expression, sports journalism.

Dan Garcia is making sports writers look like wimps.

The Newark Star-Ledger beat writer has filed a $5 million civil suit against coach John Calipari and the New Jersey Nets because Calipari called him a ``(bleeping) Mexican idiot.''

Calipari apologized to Garcia for the incident that took place March 10. The NBA came down hard on Calipari, fining him $25,000, the largest penalty ever dealt a coach.

For Garcia, this is not enough. His attorney, Kenneth McElwee, went so far as to characterize Calipari's comments as ``akin to a hate crime.''

The analogy is, I believe, akin to a bad joke.

Funny, but I've always thought that name-calling from coaches and players was a sign that a writer was doing the job. Like tight deadlines and bad pressbox food, it comes with the territory.

Garcia has nothing on one sports writer at this paper. Years ago, while covering an auto race, he was approached by an angry mechanic who called him a ``Black Jew.''

He is neither. But today he's got a funny, odd story to tell.

In a near-empty locker room at the NCAA tournament, I once was approached by the losing basketball coach, a man with a well-cultivated reputation for tweedy civility. He began cursing me in a loud voice for something or other I had written over the years.

I listened to his harangue. When he was finished, I shrugged and left the room. The coach needed to vent. I was a handy target.

If this frivolous suit only impacted Calipari and the Nets, it wouldn't concern me. But what's bothersome is the effect the legal action will have on the sterling reputation of sports writers, the fairest, most genial group of people you could meet.

Remember when Deion Sanders ambushed broadcaster Tim McCarver with a bucket of cold water? It made big headlines.

Unrecorded, though, are the many times athletes have pushed writers into the showers. Or attempted to humiliate them in front of a room full of people with an obscenity-laced rant.

And yet, no matter how shoddy their reception, I've always found writers willing to treat these run-ins with great good humor.

In the '60s, a friend of mine was in the New York Jets' locker room when Joe Namath cast a withering stare at a group of notebook-toting visitors.

``You're nothing but a bunch of $100-a-week creeps,'' he said.

Whereby a sports writer said, ``Actually, we're $200-a-week creeps.''

I've been called an idiot and worse by coaches, though I can't recall anybody using the preface ``(bleeping) Italian.'' Had that happened, I might have demonstrated the same level of maturity and answered back, ``So's your mother.''

I don't mean to excuse inappropriate conduct. A few years ago, we were rightly angered when several naked New England Patriot players taunted a female writer inside the locker room. But Garcia's complaint carries none of that weight or social significance. The risk of nasty insults comes with every press pass.

Garcia's lawsuit is unfortunate because it's such a lame, '90s thing. Also, it overlooks another avenue of redress.

No sports writer dealt with a fractious adversary more decisively than Will McDonough of the Boston Globe.

Patriots defensive back Raymond Clayborn was giving McDonough a lot of lip one day. The argument escalated. Clayborn pushed McDonough.

Suddenly, Clayborn reeled backward into his locker, dazed and humiliated. McDonough had landed a hard right.

For me, McDonough is something Garcia can never be: a hero. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS/file color photo

Nets coach John Calipari is being sued by Dan Garcia, whom Calipari

called a ``(bleeping) Mexican idiot.''

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