THE SUBJECT is the media and its place. Should it be allowed into the courtroom? Should it be allowed into the judge's chambers? Should it be allowed into the war room at the Persian Gulf? Should it be allowed on the sidelines? The first amendment argues yes.
And then there are arguments like the one Jeff Hostetler and Art Shell had a couple of weeks ago in Miami.Hostetler and Shell, the quarterback and head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders, respectively, got into a heated discussion on the sidelines during a nationally televised game against the Dolphins. Heated enough for Shell to rip his headset off and order Vince Evans, the Raiders' backup quarterback who is old enough to remember the Ice Age, into the game. Heated enough to send Hostetler toward the parking lot - until he was headed off by teammates who talked him out of it.
You probably saw the film clip at 10 . . . and 11. With no World Series to report and the O.J. jury selection process taking longer than a pitching change, the media jumped on Hostetler-Shell like an Elvis sighting, like Thomas-Hill II. Coach Argues With Player. Stay tuned.
When neither Hostetler nor Shell cared to publicly discuss their discussion after the game, the subject might have been over. But it was not over. The media continued to milk the story, speculating on what might have been said and probing for clues to more discord.
And then, just when it appeared that would be about it because Hostetler and Shell still would not bite on any interviewing bait, the story erupted again. This time with new sources, unidentified, who reported that during the argument Shell uttered derogatory racist remarks about Hostetler.
Shell is supposed to have called Hostetler "another white quarterback, just like Schroeder."
This was in reference both to Hostetler's skin coloring and to Jay Schroeder, one of a long line of modern Raider quarterbacks who have committed the unpardonable sin of not only not being Jim Plunkett, but not being Kenny Stabler either.
Actually, if Shell said what the sources say he said he could use truth as a defense, since Hostetler is white and, at the time of the discussion, he had, in a kind of tribute to Jay Schroeder, just thrown two straight incompletions.
But Shell didn't want to defend what he said and neither did Hostetler, both of whom looked at the media hordes descending on them like they were carrying a virus.
And isn't this where it always gets weird: The media wanting to make a big deal out of something the people involved insist isn't one? The more Shell and Hostetler protested they had no problem with anything that was said, the more the media probed. If Shell called Hostetler white, then that's racial. Even if Shell did say Hostetler was white, and even if it wasn't racial.
Marc Wilson, the former BYU All-American and yet another white Raider quarterback, who is now in retirement in Seattle, thinks that probably was the case. "Art could have said a lot of things in the heat of that argument," says Wilson. "And he didn't mean any of them to be racially derogative. Anybody who thinks he did doesn't know Art."
Wilson, who saw more than one quote taken out of context in his day, says a lot of words fly around sports teams that need to be kept in perspective. "In the pros, when you're around guys for a long time," he says, "you get especially close. You say things. Sometimes they're fun, sometimes they're not so fun, but you say things, and it's within the context of that long association."
Wilson recalled the time - as chronicled in the recent book "You're OK It's Only A Bruise" - when the Raiders were in San Diego facing the Chargers. Kenny King, a black running back for the Raiders, was hurt on a play and trainer George Anderson, who is white, ran on the field to check on King. Anderson was - and still is - an institution with the Raiders. "A very funny, sarcastic man," says Wilson. "He always referred to black guys" jokingly in a derogatory manner. "He always called me" a blankety blank Mormon.
"He didn't do it the first week I was there, of course, but as we got to know each other. I ended up falling in love with George. Everybody did. Anyway, once he sees that King is going to be all right he says `Would you get up, you lazy n-----?' Well, the San Diego players heard this and they're starting to get upset. Gene Upshaw, who was still playing for the Raiders then, looked up at them and said, `Shut up. He's our trainer and he can call us anything he wants.' "
Like families, teams have their own language codes, says Wilson, and also their occasional flare-ups.
"This is how it normally happens," says Wilson, referring to those heated discussions that take place between guys on the same team. "You're flying home and after you've been in the air about 45 minutes the guy who you got in an argument with comes by, you make eye contact, he says, `Hey it's no big deal,' you say the same thing, and away we go."
Providing the media didn't hear it.