NFL DRAFT PREVIEW : Agents: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Stories : It’s Strictly ‘Athlete Beware’ When He Turns Pro and Seeks Representation

Some of the big names in Tuesday’s National Football League draft belong to Bo Jackson, Tony Casillas and Jim Everett.

In the days ahead, other names, those of Thomas Ziemans, John Maloney and Marvin Demoff, may even upstage the athletes themselves.

They are agents, a phenomenon of the true golden age of sports. They are often the enemies of one another as well as of the men who control NFL teams’ purse strings. Some are lawyers. Some never went to college. Some are friends of the family. Herschel Walker, for instance, was represented by his dentist.

It’s a cutthroat game, with vicious infighting. Agents compete for flesh, then sell it for 5%, more or less. At times, agents seem to be as unruly as pirates, each seeking their own treasure island. Scumbag and sleazeball are terms commonly heard when agents are discussed, even among themselves.

Still, most are regarded around the NFL as decent, honorable and reasonable men. A few get mixed reviews.

Take Howard Slusher. He’s a notorious hard-liner, the antithesis of, say, Leigh Steinberg.

Although they are two of the best-known football agents, their styles are poles apart. But their clients swear by both.

“Slusher projects some arrogance and has a tendency to talk down to you,” said Phil Krueger of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who will pick Jackson with the top selection in this draft. “Leigh would be the kind of guy, if you’re going to negotiate the release of hostages, that would have the patience to get it done. Slusher is more of a terrorist.”

Does Slusher object to that characterization? On the contrary, he seems to revel in it and to hold his more conciliatory colleagues in contempt.

“Negotiation is not the art of compromise,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show last month. “It’s the art of getting the (other) person to your position. The concept that negotiation is the art of compromise, to me, is an absurdity.”

Slusher is accused of holding his clients hostage. Veteran defensive back Todd Bell, for example, missed the Chicago Bears’ entire Super Bowl season in a contract dispute. For that, Slusher conceded, he is perceived as “a stubborn person who . . . controls these poor little dumb athletes as puppets.”

Slusher’s regard for the media that depict that image is evident in his reference to “beady-eyed reporters.”

Steinberg, on the other hand, has become something of a celebrity. He has been a client of Rogers and Cowan, the Hollywood public relations firm, since getting a $40-million deal for Steve Young from the Los Angeles Express three years ago.

“I don’t need the publicity, but I needed somebody to screen the stuff (i.e., interview requests) so I’d have time for my practice,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg’s altruistic approach galls some of his peers. His athletes give time and money to charity and their alma maters. In 1984 they swept pro football’s Man-of-the-Year awards, tackle Irv Eatman in the USFL, placekicker Rolf Benirschke in the NFL.

And they don’t hold out.

“I’m absolutely opposed to the concept of holdouts,” Steinberg has said. “It’s destructive to the player, unfair to the fans and hurts (the client’s) relationship with his team. I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid one.”

General managers may not like Slusher as much as Steinberg, but nobody has called Slusher dishonest. Even the Raiders did not publicly accuse Slusher of deceit three years ago when they drafted USC lineman Don Mosebar in the first round and then learned that Mosebar had just had back surgery.

“Howard didn’t tell us, but our feeling was that it was our responsibility to find out,” Raider executive Al LoCasale said. “It wasn’t his job to volunteer the information.”

Athletic agents were rare in 1964 when Green Bay Packer center Jim Ringo, now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, took one along to negotiate a new contract with the late Vince Lombardi.

“This man will represent me,” Ringo told Lombardi.

Lombardi said: “Excuse me a moment,” and left the room.

When he returned, he announced, “You’re talking to the wrong person. You should be talking to Vince McNally. We’ve just traded you to the Eagles.”

An athlete usually connects with an agent in one of two ways: He is referred by another athlete or solicited by the agent. Referrals seem to work best.

Raider linebacker Rod Martin was a 12th-round choice from USC in 1977. A former pro player who had become a lawyer offered to represent him, but his only service, Martin said, was to negotiate the first contract.

“Being a 12th-round draft choice, I could have done that myself,” Martin said.

So he got another agent: Harry Stern, also chairman of Technical Equities, the San Jose real estate firm that crushed dozens of its sports investors when it went broke early this year.

“The next one I’ll probably do myself,” Martin said.

Said Ram tackle Jackie Slater, who left Jackson State 10 years ago: “I started out with a guy I won’t even dignify by calling his name. I don’t think he had my best interests at heart.

“A lot of guys get screwed around. I know one guy who gave an agent power of attorney to pay his bills, and the agent was taking the money and putting it into his own stuff.”

Safety Nolan Cromwell simply went with someone he trusted from his home state of Kansas, a lawyer named Ted Reinoehl.

“He’d never represented a professional athlete but was a very competent lawyer,” Cromwell said. “It turned out super for me.”

Later, needing someone close at hand for contract negotiations, Cromwell turned to another lawyer acquaintance, Pat Haden, the former USC and Ram quarterback. Partly for the same reason, Eric Dickerson, before his holdout last summer, dropped Jack Mills, the Boulder, Colo., agent with a sterling reputation, to go with Los Angeles-based Jack Rodri and Ken Norton.

Raider tight end Todd Christensen, a second-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in 1978, chose Randy Hendricks of Houston to represent him, on the recommendation of a former Brigham Young teammate, and has no regrets.

“I talked to a lot of them at the postseason all-star games,” Christensen said. “The Senior Bowl (at Mobile) is the biggest place for them because that’s when the players get paid and lose their eligibility. The agents and scouts were lined up shoulder to shoulder.”

Cornerback Mike Haynes has Slusher, who was recommended by an Arizona State teammate, Bob Breunig.

Haynes, who knew Slusher’s tactics, said: “I just wanted somebody who would fight hard for me. But the ultimate decisions were up to me.”

Haynes’ holdout forced the Patriots to trade him in 1983. Another of Slusher’s clients, linebacker Bob Brudzinski of the Dolphins, has held out twice--the first time with the Rams in ‘80, forcing them to trade him, and the second time to get a better contract from the Dolphins last year.

“(The Rams) thought they had me, so I just took a walk,” Brudzinski said. “But I always made my own decisions.”

That was the same year that several other Rams held out after the club had drafted safety Johnnie Johnson in the first round and signed him to a six-year, $1.07-million contract, with an option in ’86. Johnson’s agent was Michael Trope.

Sept. 25, 1980--Agent Michael Trope sues the Rams and assistant general manager Jack Faulkner for $2.2 million, alleging assault and battery and infliction of emotional distress.

The suit is later dropped.

The Ram roster was thrown into such chaos by holdouts and walkouts that Trope was no longer welcome at Rams Park. When he came to watch practice one day, General Manager Don Klosterman told Faulkner to ask him to leave.

As Faulkner escorted Trope to the parking lot, words were exchanged, and Trope feared that Faulkner was going to hit him. He quickly got into his car and started to drive away, but Faulkner pursued on foot.

Trope shifted his car into reverse and almost ran over Faulkner.

But things have changed. Trope will soon be doing business with the Rams again, negotiating a new contract for Johnson.

“We buried the hatchet a long time ago,” Trope said.

Trope’s peers are a different matter. He never has gotten along well with them.

They have criticized him for negotiating long-term contracts with a lot of the money deferred, while taking his percentage up front, and then investing his clients’ money in his own business ventures, such as apartments and Arabian horses. Worse, he said, they have spread rumors that he has supplied drugs and prostitutes to prospective clients.

“I’ve had every rumor in the book spread against me by my competition,” Trope said.

He attributes part of it to jealousy. From 1976 through ‘82, Trope represented more first-round choices than anyone, 35. He has represented seven Heisman Trophy winners.

Still, he was rapped for the contract he negotiated for the late Ricky Bell, a USC All-American, with Tampa Bay in ’77 because nearly half of the five-year, $1,240,000 deal was deferred over 15 years.

“But he got $715,000 cash in the five years,” Trope said. “That was the best contract a rookie had ever gotten, an absolute turning point in salaries. And that same year (Alabama quarterback) Richard Todd signed a five-year deal with the Jets for $605,000, with nothing deferred.”

The clients of Slusher and Trope seem to share a sentiment about their controversial agents. They love them.

Johnson said: “I can’t say enough about what (Trope) has done for me.”

Johnson and another of Trope’s clients, Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor, have invested heavily with their adviser in apartments and horses, but Trope has his money invested, too.

Johnson’s contract was long term, but nothing was deferred, and he did pay Trope his fee up front in ’80. “Only because I chose to do it that way,” Johnson said.

When Leigh Steinberg arrived in Green Bay to negotiate for first-round choice Ken Ruettgers last year, Packer Coach Forrest Gregg took notice.

“Oh, another agent’s in town?” Gregg was quoted as saying. “We’ll have him over to dinner. My wife will cook. Rat poison.”

Agents aren’t all bad.

“Ninety percent of ‘em are fine,” said George Young, the general manager of the New York Giants, adding that he even gets along with Slusher. “Sometimes the short-sightedness of management has contributed to the need for an agent. It’s not a one-way street.”

Most of the NFL executives interviewed denied, for the record, that they ever based a draft selection on the player’s choice of agents.

Young said: “In general, they don’t, but once in a while they will.”

Especially, it seems, if the agent is Howard Slusher.

Larry Muno of Inglewood, president of the Assn. of Representatives of Professional Athletes (ARPA), said: “They’ll draft around Howard--but they love Trope.”

Young said: “A lot of ‘em are hit-and-run agents. Everything is in the negotiating. The player also needs the services . . . income taxes, investments. Some of the guys who come out of college are in a state of panic.”

There have been several futile attempts to control agents, but none with any real enforcement power. All such attempts do is establish ethical guidelines, such as when an agent gets his cut, and how much. Nobody really checks them out unless somebody else--a player, a club or another agent--complains.

ARPA, Muno said, has about 100 members representing athletes in all sports. Slusher and Trope do not belong. Steinberg is vice president.

“What we have is a Good Housekeeping seal,” Muno said. “Our guys have to agree to a code of ethics.”

The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the NFLPA requires all agents who represent veteran players to be certified. Said legal counsel Dick Berthelsen: “About 1,700 have written, expressing interest, but I would say there are only about 125 or 150 that are anywhere near active.”

Berthelsen added that a few had been decertified, “after discovering they had given us false information.”

In 1984, the NCAA instituted its own program to certify agents, a move designed to protect players emerging from college. An agent agrees to follow NCAA rules for contacting athletes, in exchange for getting his name on a list of approved agents that is circulated among Division I-A schools.

The most recent list, circulated this month, has 480 names. An administrator at one school, requesting anonymity, said, however: “I’ve seen people’s names on that list that I wouldn’t let near any of our players.”

USC Coach Ted Tollner and UCLA’s Terry Donahue said they didn’t know about the list but tried to counsel players who asked for help--not to steer players toward any particular agents but to keep them away from bad ones.

Recent NCAA legislation has permitted members to set up three-person advisory panels for athletes. UCLA has done so.

Dr. Judith Holland, a senior associate athletic director for student services, said: “We have two (people) from the graduate school of management and one from the school of law. We’re just getting started, so I don’t think we’ve tapped what can be done.”

Finally, California two years ago passed a law requiring the registration of agents who represent athletes in the state or practice in the state.

But Muno said: “It has no process for review, no policing--zip.”

One of ARPA’s purposes is to give agents a good name.

Muno said: “Unfortunately, the stigma attached to representing athletes is the cigar chomper with money in his hands. But, without being corny, I think that men of good will and ethics can get along.

“I have no problem losing a client to a Jack Mills or a Leigh Steinberg. I know they’re gonna get good care and not get cheated. It’s the others I worry about.”