TOM McMILLEN GOES FROM Bullets to Ballots : As Latest Player-Turned-Politician, He Tries Scoring Points With Voters

The Jeffersonian ideal, that government should come from all walks of life, is getting a good little workout these days.

Prime example: The next Presidential election, after a former sportscaster-turned-actor steps aside, could very well be contested by a former football player and a former basketball player.

Is this what Jefferson really had in mind? All walks of life, sure. But sports?

Would Jefferson like the White House turned into a kind of visiting clubhouse, the smell of liniment in the air, the Cabinet towel-snapping its way through arms control or the federal deficit?

Never mind Senator Bill Bradley and Congressman Jack Kemp, who could very well face off for the presidency in 1988. How about Steve Garvey, whose political aspirations are hardly secret? Jim Bunning has ambitions in Kentucky politics. Roger Staubach has the Republicans’ eye. Vince Dooley actually considered turning in his whistle for a whistle-stop campaign in Georgia. How ‘bout that Dawg?

If this is any kind of trend at all, the Senate will be looking like the locker room before an old-timers’ game, and the House will look like the set for a beer commercial. Think about it: There could come a time, if Tom Seaver has his way, that the first pitch on opening day will be a drop-off-the-plate slider, low and away.

Good or bad, it’s happening. Here’s Tom McMillen, late of the Washington Bullets, running for office in Maryland’s Fourth Congressional District.

Remember when athletes retired and became beer distributors? Whole ‘nother ballgame these days. Pivot to politics, that’s the new transition game.

“Why not?” asks McMillen, occupying most of the vertical space in his campaign-headquarters office. He is 6-11 and unfolds like a carpenter’s rule. He always had the silver hair, and even as a college All-American at Maryland he was called Senator.

Then he repeats the ideal that informs this little movement: “From all walks of life, all sectors. It’s understandable athletes, like anybody else, would get involved.”

McMillen, 33, might well characterize this ideal and this movement, combining, as he does, both the new politics and a high-profile sports background. And an examination of his appeal and his credentials may be reassuring to the citizenry, at least those concerned about this apparent influx of jocks, guys who might think zone when questioned on defense, or think Pete Rose when the Reds come to town.

The question, finally: Is having an NBA star in office worse than having a movie actor, a businessman, an astronaut in office? Is it even different? Couldn’t it, in fact, be better than having a politician in office?

McMillen, who calls himself a baby boomer Democrat, relaxes behind his desk, enjoying some rare moments between fund-raisers.

“The fact that I’m fresh, well, when you look at American politics these days, I think that’s a lot of the appeal,” he says. “It’s not that I’m a former athlete. It’s that I offer independence. Ronald Reagan, he can say what he pleases, and people like that. They know he doesn’t owe anybody.

“People look at Washington and they see a grapevine, the politicians permanently engulfed by special interests. Politicians have a history, how they got where they are. But I owe no one, I have no IOUs.”

Of course, as John Petrocik, associate professor of political science at UCLA and an associate director of the Institute for Social Science Research, put it: “That cuts both ways. For every voter who sees and likes that fresh face, there’s somebody else who wonders what, in their days of throwing a ball, ever qualified them for public office. I’ve seen that kind of built-in resentment just as strong.

“Just think of all the Hollywood types who have wandered into politics. I’ve seen that in survey data, the whole notion of capitalizing on fame. For the opponent, it’s a matter if I can make stick the charge they have no experience or even force them to talk about it, it can hobble their campaign.”

McMillen’s opponent for the vacant seat, GOP candidate Bobby Neall, obviously overmatched at 5-7, has been hobbling away. “I love my chances against McMillen,” he has said. “He’s trading on his status as a celebrity and a sports figure. Meanwhile I’m trading on my reputation as a good legislator.”

To which McMillen said: “This campaign is not going to be won on my jump shot. On the other hand, there’s still time for him to learn a jump shot . . . and grow a foot and a half.”

Blocked shot! Reject!

“I should hasten to add,” Petrocik hastened to add, “it’s clear people have been moved because of popularity. It’s sort of hard to know.”

Nobody, it should be pointed out, seems to know how to treat his past celebrity in this athlete-goes-to-Washington scenario.

Bradley, the former Princeton and New York Knick star, has almost treated his glory days as an embarrassment, putting distance between his playing career and his political career. But Kemp, who was the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in the American Football League during the ‘60s, still wears his rings.

If it’s clear that nobody will vote for you just because you’re a jock, it’s equally clear that they won’t necessarily vote against you for being one.

Certainly McMillen does not treat his recent profession or his fame as incidental. To be sure, he is quick to tick off his additional qualifications--small businessman (he owns a paging network), fund raiser, bank trustee, a committeeman, a committee chairman, all while he conducted a professional basketball career.

But, he has to admit that if he hadn’t played in the NBA for 11 years, few would have heard of him.

“The flip side of all this is my ID is three times greater than my opponent, which is pretty significant,” he said. “Name ID never hurts. After all, that’s probably why people come to vote. There is no one, for example, who has never heard of Ronald Reagan.”

To this, Petrocik agreed. “That is one of the plus things, one we know for sure,” he said. “People display positivity, if they even know a name. If we don’t know anything bad about him, we assume the best. It’s like, ‘Well, he’s OK. He’ll do a good job.’

“We don’t know why we say that, but it’s one notch better than nothing. In the absence of any bad association, name recognition is good.”

And as McMillen points out, what association can be made with his name except good? “I mean, I haven’t been killing widows, right?”

McMillen will even use his sports background to draw some obvious political parallels. Of course, he can afford to raise the question of dumb jock, for he has credentials to prove that he was a smart one. Like Bradley, he is a Rhodes scholar.

“That kind of nails the academics down, doesn’t it?” he said, smiling. We’re not voting for Mickey Rivers or Yogi Berra here, he seems to be saying.

“Anyway, sports is a real positive thing in this country,” he said. “By and large, we don’t have any negative attachments to sports. But sports applies to politics.

“For example, I understand leadership, paying the price. I’ve been a good role player, which is probably the key to politics. The whole idea of teamwork is a lot like the legislative arena. I can work with anyone.

“Just look: I’ve worked with Manute Bol from the Sudan, Jeff Ruland from Long Island, Gus Williams from Yonkers. That’s a history of dealing with people, of getting along. The further testimony to that is that all these people have been helping me.”

Other associations we make with sports are discipline, motivation and, in some exalted circumstances, heroic courage. These are not bad. McMillen, despite being tabbed the best high school player in America--he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 17--always had to work for what he got.

In the NBA, he certainly wasn’t known for his flamboyance. He was always disciplined and workman-like, his elbows as feared as his jump shot. And certainly he has had his big moments, his grace under pressure. In a one-week stretch last year, he came off the bench and averaged more than 23 points. In any of his previous seasons, he had never averaged more than 10.

Maybe, in an age when politicians sound increasingly alike, this is all the important experience anyone needs. The politics, the position papers--he has issued just one, on defense--will come later.

Anyway, there is growing evidence that all we want of our politicians is a kind of charm, an accessibility. What is our President called? The Great Communicator?

As it has always been in the country, for landowners or athletes, the one key to getting elected is winning the esteem of the electorate. As Petrocik points out, usually the biggest landowner or biggest businessman commanded that esteem. But the country is less elitist these days.

“We’re living in an age where you don’t need to be the wealthiest person in town,” Petrocik said. “You may now become recognized, and therefore available, for any number of things. You can become recognized by being an astronaut or a basketball player. Nothing’s really changed; it’s just that these routes weren’t available before.

“The key, as always, is being well-regarded, and it used to belong only to a small elite.”

According to Petrocik, the new politics is simply the electorate gaining the impression that it knows and understands the office-seeker.

“This vicarious access makes people think they know them as individuals. Who’s going to turn Clint Eastwood down, even if he doesn’t have a gun? It would be un-American.

“The athlete-personality-politician is part of this phenomenon. They’re successful, those that have their heads bolted on, and have a point of view. They will be formidable opponents.”

McMillen, though still formulating a point of view, may prove to be such a formidable opponent. His own poll shows him well ahead of Neall, and certainly his treasure chest is better filled. McMillen estimates that he will need $600,000 to run his campaign, as he must operate in two media markets--Baltimore and Washington. The money is rolling in.

He is intelligent, handsome in a tall kind of way and has the energy of, well, an athlete.

So far he has it all. But in the next few months, the people who come to sit with him in his office, adorned by that blown-up Sports Illustrated cover, will be less inclined to chat about the Lakers than the area’s defense industry.

His name will continue to appear in the newspapers, but in different sections. The novelty of a pro basketball player running a campaign will have worn off.

“I’m ready for that,” McMillen said, looking more than ready, looking eager, in fact. He glanced at his watch. “I have a speaking engagement at 12, two functions tonight, one at 7:30, another at 9.

“And it’ll just get worse,” he said, resonating pure happiness, a politician’s anticipation of hands to be shaken, babies to be kissed, wheels to be greased, things--issues, debates, votes--to be won.

Let the games begin.