PHELPS HAS HIS OWN BATTLE PLANS FOR WAR ON DRUGS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 20, 1993                   TAG: 9303200108
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA.                                LENGTH: Medium
PHELPS HAS HIS OWN BATTLE PLANS FOR WAR ON DRUGS
Digger Phelps spent 21 years as a college head basketball coach. He spent only nine months in a more recent job.
He still enjoys and knows hoops, evidenced by his work for CBS Sports as a telecast analyst during the NCAA Tournament. His passions lie with his short- term employment, however.
Phelps, who spent two decades as Notre Dame's coach, was named the Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of National Drug Policy - a big title for the point man who went into the streets to coordinate the country's war on drugs from a grass-roots level.
Phelps was appointed by President Bush last April. When Bill Clinton won the election and moved into the White House, Phelps was moved out. He was one of the cuts when President Clinton trimmed the National Drug Policy office staff from 146 to 25.
"It does seem kind of ironic that I'm a Democrat and I was working for a Republican administration, and then when a Democrat moves in, I'm out," Phelps said. "Why am I not there? I think they think I'm the enemy. They look at me as a political crony of George Bush."
Phelps, working NCAA games this weekend in Tucson, Ariz., before doing a New York studio assignment next weekend, says the drug crisis in the nation should be above playing politics.
"It wasn't like I had a $100,000-a-year job and was going to play 36 holes at Congressional Country Club every day," Phelps said. "I turned down jobs that paid a lot more. I was offered the [Nevada-Las] Vegas job. I could have coached in the NBA.
"I wanted to do this because I thought it was a good program. I think one reason it was working is that when I went in and said, `Digger Phelps, drug control' people know it wasn't political."
To date, he hasn't been able to get an audience with Clinton.
"If I can talk to him, I think I could convince him that the `Weed and Seed' program is needed. And I think President Clinton needs to do it from the White House. I think you get a better response to it there.
"When it's coming out of the Justice Department, they naturally think law-and-order. It won't work as well through HUD either. The reason I have respect for George Bush and Dan Quayle is that they understood the issue, and they tried to implement the strategy."
Phelps' job was to go into the inner cities and build a rapport and help establish guidelines to create safe havens from drugs. He worked with mayors, social agencies, schools and neighborhoods.
"You've got to give people, particularly kids, options besides drugs, violence and guns," Phelps said. "President Clinton has an economic vision. Well, getting these people jobs is an economic issue, too."
Asked if his name and reputation pushed his chances for acceptance in the inner cities, Phelps said it was only a start.
"Being Digger Phelps may have gotten me in the door," he said. "But those people are tired of speeches. They wanted action. When we came back a second and third time and showed we meant to do what we said we wanted to do, the trust got stronger.
"And in there, at the grass-roots level, that's where this has to be done. It has to be an inside job. Working from the top down doesn't work. Until we, on the outside, understand what's really going on in this regard, it will never work."
Phelps said the National Drug Policy office estimated that cocaine trafficking in this country is estimated at $27 billion annually. He said unless the nation gets as serious about curbing drug abuse - as it has drunk driving - then the situation will only worsen.
"Of that $27 billion, 60-70 percent of the cocaine is bought by people outside a neighborhood," Phelps said. "The 30-40 percent is being used on the street. The higher percentage is being used by professional people - doctors, lawyers, bankers, salesmen, corporate executives, whoever.
"As long as those people keep buying, the people on the streets are going to keep selling. When there's a DUI, the bartender or the restaurant owner are all of a sudden part of the picture. When there's a drive-by shooting, because someone is buying drugs for somebody on the outside, how is that user on the outside different from that bartender?"
Phelps, 51, still lives in South Bend, Ind., where his wife is a Notre Dame law professor. He works the "Weed and Seed" program for his community, and in Benton Harbor, Mich. That isn't enough, however.
"The number one need is drug-treatment clinics," Phelps said. "We need Betty Ford Clinics in these inner cities. People have no idea what it costs.
"It takes $75,000, that's three trips of drug rehab, to rehab a cocaine addict. Then, you have to have something for that person to do. They need vocational skills, a job. A GED isn't enough.
"I think President Clinton's got it backwards. He wants to create jobs. Here's a way. But right now, it's haves and have-nots.
"What we were doing was working. It wasn't political, it was helping the country."
It sounds like Phelps is a pusher who will keep digging.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB