Reporter Hits Switzer With Libel for Book : Football: Jack Taylor’s suit claims chapter in ‘Bootlegger’s Boy’ is ‘vindictive fiction.’

When Barry Switzer resigned as football coach at the University of Oklahoma in 1989, book publishers saw his story as the stuff of which best-selling autobiographies are made.

As the Sooners’ coach for 16 seasons, Switzer had felt the highs of three national championships and 12 Big Eight titles. He had also experienced, in late 1988 and early ‘89, the lows of NCAA probation and a variety of criminal charges involving his players.

Said Shari Wenk, a Chicago-based literary agent who deals primarily with sports books: “You know publishers were sitting there with demonic grins on their faces and dollar signs in their eyes.”

Switzer’s book, “Bootlegger’s Boy,” published last fall by William Morrow and Company, indeed met those expectations, spending nine weeks on the New York Times’ best-seller list.

In the book, Switzer delivered strong opinions on a variety of subjects, chief among them the media.

“Fiction writers,” Switzer wrote of members of the media who, in his view, more often than not failed to check their facts before reporting stories about him or his program.

Thus is the irony of the scene due to unfold early next year in an Austin courtroom, where a jury will decide whether Barry Switzer, writer, libeled a newspaper reporter in “Bootlegger’s Boy.”

At issue is a chapter entitled, “The Setup,” in which Switzer describes how reporter Jack Taylor, while working for the Dallas Times Herald in 1987, allegedly participated in an ill-fated scheme to trap a member of the Oklahoma football team in a cocaine sting.

A veteran investigative reporter who wrote frequently about alleged irregularities in Switzer’s program while working at the Times Herald and the Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City, Taylor asserts in a lawsuit filed in state district court that the chapter is “vindictive fiction.”

Taylor, who now works for the Los Angeles Daily News, is seeking unspecified damages from Switzer for invasion of privacy, libel, slander, defamation, infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium. The suit also names Switzer’s co-author, Austin journalist and screenwriter Bud Shrake, and William Morrow and Company.

Currently promoting the recent release of “Bootlegger’s Boy” in paperback, Switzer has refused to discuss the lawsuit, and declined an interview request by The Times.

Nonetheless, he holds firmly to the notion that Taylor was involved in a conspiracy to set up an Oklahoma player for a drug arrest, according to his attorney, James George.

“Mr. Switzer really believes the press--or at least some members of the press--exceed the bounds of propriety in the way they go about gathering information,” George said. “And he believes Mr. Taylor did so in the instance recounted in the book.”

THE BOOK BUSINESS

If Taylor is successful with his suit, set for trial in February, the repercussions would certainly be felt in the sports world, where autobiographical collaborations have become, as Wenk put it, “part of the package” for athletes, coaches and other figures.

Said Wenk: “It’s, ‘We’ll do the video, the Nike commercial and the book.’ ”

Switzer, his career equal parts success and scandal, made an ideal candidate for a tell-all memoir, she said.

“Here’s a guy who didn’t have a lot to lose,” she said. “He’s already out at Oklahoma. He’s partially on the attack, partially being crazy. A character. And there aren’t that many characters in sports. The view (in the book publishing industry) on Switzer was, ‘Yeah, great stuff--some dirt.’ ”

How closely such books are checked for accuracy varies, according to Wenk and others who deal with them.

But generally, they say, publishers have the attitude that an individual cast in a negative light in a book, particularly a public figure, would rather let the issue slide than take legal action.

“Most times, quite frankly, when you do something (legally), all you do is fuel sales for the book,” said Jay Acton, a New York literary agent who has been involved with several controversial sports autobiographies, including those of former Oklahoma linebacker Brian Bosworth and former Dallas Cowboy Thomas (Hollywood) Henderson.

Asked in interrogatories from Taylor to explain how information in “The Setup” was verified, William Morrow and Company responded that it asked Switzer to explain the basis for his information and relied on that explanation. The company did not provide Switzer’s explanation in its response.

Adrian Zackheim, the company’s editorial director and the editor for “Bootlegger’s Boy,” declined comment on the suit.

“I think these ‘as-told-to’ books are, in a way, begging for trouble, especially if you are dealing with (a celebrity/author) who has been involved in controversy for a long time,” said Dwight Teeter, dean of the University of Tennessee’s College of Communications. “I’m not surprised that this (lawsuit) is happening. The surprise in this is that a reporter is fighting back.”

MOVES AND COUNTERMOVES

The case has indeed proven to be a minefield for Taylor, who began working at the Daily News after leaving the Times Herald last January.

According to Times Herald editor Roy Bode, Taylor’s resignation from the newspaper stemmed from “philosophical differences” regarding the reporter’s decision to file the suit.

“I don’t believe reporters or editors ought to file libel suits,” Bode said. “(Filing a libel suit) is extremely treacherous legal ground for the media. . . . It is also counterproductive, in this age of explosive libel litigation, for reporters or editors to fuel the process.”

In a move that bears out that philosophy, Switzer petitioned the court to obtain the names of all confidential sources who have provided information to Taylor regarding Switzer and Oklahoma football.

Switzer’s request, which was rejected, stemmed from a counterclaim in which he seeks $6 million in damages from Taylor for invasion of privacy. Switzer asserts in the counterclaim that his privacy was invaded because his tax returns were obtained by Taylor between 1973 and 1983.

Taylor declined to be interviewed for this article. However, his attorney, Jack Ayres, said there is no reason why a reporter should not be a plaintiff in a libel suit if the reporter feels strongly, as Taylor does, that his reputation has been harmed by a published report.

“The First Amendment--freedom of the press--is there to enable our citizens to receive a full and accurate accounting of what’s going on,” he said. “With that right comes enormous power. It’s like fire. If it’s in an oven, it can bake bread. If it’s on the roof of a house, it can kill you.

“One of the responsibilities a person has when writing a nonfiction book is to do so with some degree of accuracy and fairness, particularly when accusing another individual of a heinous crime.”

In a sense, the legal maneuvering between Switzer and Taylor is part of a coach vs. reporter conflict that goes back nearly 20 years.

At the Daily Oklahoman, where he worked for 19 years, Taylor built a reputation as a tenacious reporter, writing on such subjects as corruption in state government, abuses involving the Teamsters’ pension fund, the Karen Silkwood case, the My Lai massacre and Switzer’s program.

In 1976, Taylor and Frank Boggs, then the Daily Oklahoman’s sports columnist, reported that the NCAA was investigating a ticket-scalping scheme involving Oklahoma football. As a result of angry public reaction to the story, which broke when the Sooners were coming off back-to-back national championships, Taylor and Boggs received police protection at the newspaper’s request.

The NCAA ultimately did not penalize Oklahoma in the matter. But that story and others left Switzer with hard feelings toward Taylor that lingered and turned up in the pages of “Bootlegger’s Boy.”

SWITZER’S VERSION

In “The Setup,” Switzer begins by describing his tempestuous relationship with Taylor, noting that on one occasion he was so enraged by a line of questioning from the reporter that he almost threw a punch at him.

Switzer then goes on to tell the “incredible but true” story of a member of the 1987 Oklahoma team--identified in the book only as “Big Red,” but since identified in court documents as Brad McBride, a reserve linebacker at the time.

According to Switzer’s account, McBride had been lured into living with a woman who identified herself as Janeeo Dior, heiress to the Christian Dior fortune.

While the Sooners were in Miami preparing to play in the 1988 Orange Bowl, Switzer wrote, Dior called McBride and asked him to bring back a package, which she said contained cocaine. McBride refused, according to the book.

When the team returned to Oklahoma after the game, Switzer wrote, McBride found that Dior had vanished. All that remained in their apartment, according to Switzer, were the player’s belongings and a housekeeper named Ruthie Williams who had looked after Dior’s two children.

According to Switzer’s account, the housekeeper told McBride that Dior had been meeting secretly with an unnamed newspaper reporter from Dallas and making tapes of conversations with Oklahoma players to give to the reporter.

McBride then looked at a phone bill left behind by Dior and found at least 15 calls to the Dallas Times Herald newsroom, Switzer wrote.

“(McBride) was frightened enough that he went to the police, the FBI and me,” Switzer wrote. “He realized what a disaster it would have been if he had brought that package home from Miami for Janeeo. He would have been busted at the airport with the entire Oklahoma football team around him.”

After hearing McBride’s story, Switzer arranged for the player to retell it in the presence of Norman, Okla., FBI agent Phil Shockey.

Upon hearing the story, Shockey, according to Switzer, said that the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics had been tipped that an Oklahoma player would be bringing drugs back from Miami.

Wrote Switzer: “I couldn’t wait to ask, ‘Did they say who called?’ Phil replied, ‘It was someone who said his name was Jack Taylor.’ ”

TAYLOR’S VERSION

In his suit, Taylor claims that the chapter “clearly asserts as truth” that he placed a “female spy” in a relationship with an Oklahoma player and tried to use her to supply cocaine to the player in an attempt to obtain a story about cocaine use among Oklahoma players.

The suit states that “even the most basic of investigations would have revealed the defendants’ conclusions to be lies.”

Deposition testimony taken in the case has, in fact, sketched a different scenario than that portrayed by Switzer in his book.

A Times Herald sportswriter, Dan Langendorf, has testified that he received an unsolicited phone call in December 1987 from Dior. According to Langendorf, Dior called the newspaper claiming to have knowledge of drug use and improper ticket sales involving McBride and other Oklahoma players.

Langendorf testified that, in following up, he then met with Dior in Norman and bought her a tape recorder.

Following that meeting, Langendorf stated, he received another call from Dior in which she said that McBride had called her from Miami requesting money to buy cocaine. Langendorf said he passed the information along to Taylor, who attempted to check it out with law enforcement sources in Oklahoma.

Langendorf testified that Dior later informed him that the drug deal had not come off and no money had been sent. According to Langendorf, Dior said she was scared and wanted to leave Oklahoma. Langendorf testified that he then brought her to Dallas, from which she departed by plane for an unknown foreign destination.

Switzer acknowledged in his deposition that he knew from talking to Ruthie Williams, the housekeeper, before writing the book that the reporter who had dealt with Dior was someone other than Taylor. In his testimony, Switzer said that the housekeeper referred to the reporter as “Don.” But he said he saw no need to put that information in the book or pin down exactly who the reporter was.

“We were writing the book and we had a time constraint and we were taping and . . . I didn’t pursue it any further,” he said.

Switzer also stated that he did not discuss the matter with Taylor, despite a chance meeting between the two several months before the book was published.

Asked in his deposition what journalistic standards guided his work on “Bootlegger’s Boy,” Switzer responded: “I’m not a journalist. I obviously wasn’t aware (of) any of those that exist. I had none to follow. . . . All I did was collect facts.”

McBride testified that he did refuse a request by Dior to pick up a package in Miami that she said would contain cocaine. But he said he had no knowledge of a scheme to plant drugs on him involving Taylor.

Attorneys involved in the suit have been unable to locate Dior.

As for co-author Shrake, a former Sports Illustrated writer, he stated, in answer to interrogatories, that his role in the project was “not to investigate everything (Switzer) remembered, but to help put his memory into prose.”

Switzer’s lawyer, George, said he believes he can defend his client on the grounds that what was written in “The Setup” is substantially true.

Barring that, George said, Taylor will be considered a public figure and, as such, will be required to show actual malice on Switzer’s part--an argument that George believes cannot be made.

“I think it’s a very simple case,” he said. “I think Jack Taylor is a public figure, and I think Barry Switzer believed (Taylor) was involved in a conspiracy to plant drugs. Whether (Taylor) worked by himself or with Langendorf, I don’t think it makes any difference to the gut charge--that is, (Taylor) was involved in a conspiracy to set this kid up. And Barry believes that like he believes the sun comes up in the East.”

And if a jury doesn’t buy it?

Said Wenk: “It will make a lot of people nervous. Writers will have to do their homework a little better. Publishers will have to hammer a little more (for the facts). Maybe they will look a little closer at some of the books they are publishing.”