Generosity by Athletes Overlooked

Flipping through piles of grant requests to his Forever Young Foundation, Steve Young sighs with exasperation that he simply can’t help everyone.

“Wow! The needs are fantastic,” he says at his home, halfway between the stadium and the San Francisco 49ers’ practice field. “You start a little charity to be a vehicle for fund raising and find out the needs out there are astronomical. Especially with government cutbacks for children’s programs.”

Young gives in ways large and small, from building interactive computer playrooms at children’s hospitals to helping grassroots groups with the extra $500 or $1,000 that keep them going. Through an annual celebrity golf tournament, his foundation raises money for Operation Smile, which sends doctors to Southeast Asia to perform relatively simple operations that turn around people’s lives by fixing such birth defects as a clubfoot or cleft palate.

In his spare time, he works with American Indian Services of Provo, Utah, to help Navajos on reservations. And when he hears of a particular problem, like a Siberian immigrant family that desperately needed dental work to eat properly, he quietly comes up with the money.

“These are small miracles,” he says of the changes a little medical care can make.

“My basic philosophy is that if you can effect change for a child, you’re effecting change for 60 or 70 years and many generations. Not that there aren’t needs for people of older age. But it just seems to me that children, if they can be helped in a fundamental family sense or given tutoring or mentoring, you’ve given them something for a lifetime.”

At a time when sports seem maddeningly intertwined with violence, drugs, sex and arrests, a less sensational and more representative truth is often overlooked: Athletes are involved in charities and volunteer programs--working one on one with children, helping the needy, raising funds to fight diseases--more than perhaps any group in society.

Ted Turner, owner of the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks, made a big splash several months ago when he announced plans to donate $1 billion over the next decade to fund U.N. causes and challenged other fat cats to ante up, too.

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Athletes have been taking tax write-offs on donations for years, but these days many are making a difference in ways that go far beyond dollars.

Some do it inconspicuously, like the Hawks’ Dikembe Mutombo, who visited a Crow reservation in Montana and other tribes in North Dakota to talk about education, lifestyle choices, success, character and health.

Others are more public, like Seattle quarterback Warren Moon, whose Crescent Moon Foundation gives grants to students to attend college.

There are the current and retired athletes who work with kids in inner cities--Jackie Joyner Kersee in St. Louis, Nate Archibald in New York, Pat McCormick in Los Angeles, Kevin Johnson in Sacramento and Phoenix, to name just a few.

And there are the thousands of athletes who work through the 141 colleges and universities in the National Consortium for Academics in Sport. Since its start in 1985, more than 13,000 athletes have contributed more than 5.7 million hours of community service, working in drug and alcohol abuse programs, violence prevention, race relations and other issues.

“No group in society gives more time to charity work as volunteers than athletes,” says Richard Lapchick, founder of the consortium and head of Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society.

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Charities of every type know they can boost fund raising and awareness if popular athletes help. For the athletes, working with local charities builds their esteem in their communities, which can lead to more endorsements and make them more valuable to their teams.

“Most players realize that in name recognition we’re kind of a gimmick, but why not use the name recognition to bring about positive change,” Young says. “True change takes place on a micro-level between people, one to one. On a macro-level, it’s more perception. But some of the more notable athletes, like Reggie White, have made changes nationwide. Players of responsibility can do great work.”

For the most part, athletes shy away from speaking about controversial social or political issues--gun control, abortion, gay rights--for fear of alienating the companies they endorse.

The Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame in Boise, Idaho was started four years ago to honor athletes who are making a contribution to the world. Inducted the first year were Rafer Johnson, Chi Chi Rodriguez and the late Arthur Ashe. The second year saw Julius Erving, Dale Murphy and the late Roberto Clemente recognized. Last year, it was Olympians Pat McCormick, Kip Keino and Bonnie Blair.

This year, on the eve of the newest NCAA bowl game Dec. 29, the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Kevin Johnson, Mel Blount and Billy Mills will be enshrined.

“These are people who do more than give their dollars,” says its head, Myron Finkbeiner. “A Billy Mills comes from an Olympic sport. He didn’t make any money as a professional athlete. But he’s giving his time. Kevin Johnson signed a $2 million contract. I don’t really know what he does as far as his money goes, but I know what he does with his time.”

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Johnson started the St. Hope Academy in his hometown of Sacramento, Calif., in 1989 to give inner city children a structured refuge after school and in the summer. Four years ago, he set up a similar academy in Phoenix. The academies focus on education and character.

“We all know the importance of education, but education without character can be a little dangerous,” Johnson says.

Finkbeiner knew about Johnson’s work at St. Hope, but what really impressed him was seeing Johnson with children.

“I met him at lunch last month and he brought three little kids from the inner city with him,” Finkbeiner says. “I found out later that nearly every Saturday he goes into the inner city, gets some kids, reads the Bible to them, plays a little basketball and takes them out to dinner. It’s what he does from his heart and from his soul. That is the difference between the kinds of people we honor and the average professional that has multimillions and is only giving back to have a tax write-off.”

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Recent changes in tax laws have made the write-offs less appealing and have prompted athletes to look more closely at what they want to accomplish as donors or volunteers, says agent Leigh Steinberg, who represents Young, Moon, Troy Aikman and about 120 other football and baseball players.

“The one-to-one write-off doesn’t exist anymore,” he says. “The benefits are minor. The more important concept that we emphasize is that athletes have a tremendous opportunity to use their high profile and serve as role models. They trigger imitative behavior, especially among younger men, so it gives them a real chance to make a difference.

“We encourage players to retrace their roots, go back to the high school communities that helped develop them, to the collegiate communities that helped shape them, and ultimately to the professional community, and set up programs which enhance the quality of life. And in doing that, they gain a whole set of non-athletic skills that they can use for a lifetime.”

In most cases, athletes who start their own foundations set up nonprofit corporations in the state where they’re living or playing. The athlete then hires a director to run the corporation, and will raise money for it by holding golf tournaments, dinners, auctions and other events, as well as soliciting pledges from businesses and residents.

The Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation raised $2.7 million two months ago in Las Vegas with an auction and a show that featured Elton John, Celine Dion, Clint Black, Jay Leno and Lionel Richie.

“When Eric and Lyle (Menendez) asked me to do their (benefit), I was busy. I found something else to do,” Leno joked. “But just the name Agassi, you go.”

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Agassi’s foundation has donated more than $4.5 million to build a new Boys and Girls Club in Las Vegas, start an education center with a shelter for abused and neglected children, provide clothes and health kits for homeless children, and aid a variety of other charities.

Even the youngest sports stars are finding ways to make an impact away from the courts and fields. Martina Hingis recently donated $75,000 to the World Health Organization’s effort to eradicate polio in Ethiopia. Though the sum is only a fraction of the $3.4 million the top-ranked 17-year-old earned on the tour this year, her affiliation with the immunization program may be just her first step in raising money and awareness for the U.N. health agency.

“More than 9 million children die every year from infectious diseases,” she said. “That’s why I chose to support WHO. I’m told it saves about 3 million children a year.”

Hingis decided to aid the agency after viewing impoverished conditions in Indonesia during a trip to Jakarta for the Fed Cup.

“I saw all the poverty there with my own eyes,” Hingis said. “I came back to Switzerland and saw how we live here. I thought it’s not nice always to take everything, but maybe give something to others.”

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There are two types of foundations that athletes generally set up. One, like the Forever Young Foundation, is a pass-through vehicle that allocates funds to existing charities. The other type, like the Crescent Moon Foundation, gives grants directly to students and creates its own programs.

Steinberg estimates he spends 40% of his time setting up foundations like those.

“I believe that at the end of the day, even as a lawyer, the world is going to little note nor long remember the amount of money we negotiated,” Steinberg says. “And the only product of lasting value that we contribute as a law firm is the charitable and community programs. Everything else is derivative. Those programs make a dramatic difference in saving endangered species or in sending kids to college. Instead of sitting around bemoaning all of the problems that the society has, we can go out and do something about it. So we won’t represent an athlete in our practice unless he is willing to serve as a role model and do these programs.”

The New York Knicks’ John Starks created a foundation to build facilities in Tulsa, Okla., high schools. In Kansas City, Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas started the Third-and-Long Foundation to promote children’s literacy in elementary schools. New England quarterback Drew Bledsoe pledged $2 million to his own foundation, which specializes in family counseling. His father is head of the foundation, which is creating a series of videotapes and other teaching devices.

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There are pitfalls, though, for athletes who start foundations even with the best of intentions. Moon fell into some when he ran a golf tournament and spent more money flying in athletes and meeting other expenses than he raised.

“The athletes have had to learn, as all charities have, how to raise money efficiently and how to be an efficient administrator to keep costs down and try to crank out the highest percentage of revenue possible,” Steinberg says.

Young says nearly all the money he raises through events and speeches goes to the causes he’s helping.

“I try to make it as simplified and streamlined and low key as possible,” he says. “The board is basically just within my family and close friends and Leigh. You don’t ever want to get into a trap of spending a lot of money to raise a little bit of money. It’s self-defeating and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s why I’ve tried to limit the number of major events because they tend to cost a lot of money to put on.”

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He doesn’t like to talk much about his charity work, especially the small acts of kindness like helping the Russian family with their dental work.

“My feeling is that most of the stuff I do from a personal standpoint stays that way,” he says. “The foundation obviously is a public charity and everything I do there is public. That’s how I raise money, by raising public awareness.”

Steinberg, who requires all his athletes to contribute to their schools or communities, says the issue of whether to publicize their efforts has always been sensitive.

“People say to me, ‘Why do you have to talk about all this charitable stuff? Just do it,”’ Steinberg says. “But the fact is that the charities themselves are looking for not simply the contribution from the athlete, but the ripple effect it can engender. Having an athlete publicly identified with it stimulates other donations from non-athletes, which is invaluable. If an athlete could give $50,000, but his identification raises $5 million, that’s a lot of what they’re looking for.

“The second concept is this: They are role models. And when an athlete talks about the need for community or charitable giving, it stimulates that same philosophy in other people.”

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Young, says Steinberg, sees need and goes to it as if he were heading toward the goal line in an open-field run.

“His view has never been that money is to be hoarded,” Steinberg says. “When we were doing his last contract this year ($45 million for six years), since he’s independently wealthy for life, a lot of our discussion was in terms of what it could mean to his charitable giving. Because, in essence, that’s what the money would be for.”

For Young, the idea of giving time and money fits into his religious and social views.

“It’s all based in the idea of family and taking care of those around you,” he says. “Just expanding your idea of what a family is: your neighborhood, your community, that kind of thing.

“Some people see the world as one big pie and you just have to fight for your piece. I believe that it’s not that static, that if you help others you double the size of the pie. It’s kind of an interesting dynamic to service. If you serve somebody, it’s funny how it comes back to you double.”