Personal Foul. Tim Donaghy
Long before Charles Barkley was coaxed into paying off his $400,000 marker at a Las Vegas casino in 2008, gambling was a firmly entrenched form of entertainment within the NBA family. Being an NBA referee means having lots of downtime. Games typically start at 7:00 PM local time, and we were generally out of the building by around 11:00 PM. A quick trip to the airport the next morning and it’s on to another city, sometimes a day or two before the next game. If the weather was good, we might play golf. If the weather was bad, we would do anything to pass the time and escape the boredom. Referee Mike “Duke” Callahan and I would occasionally sit in a hotel room and roll a golf ball toward the front door for hours at a time. The game was called “rolly bolly,” and we would bet $20 a roll to see who could get it closest to the door without hitting it. Now that’s boredom.
During training camp we played Liar’s Poker. The games were competitive because we were all good liars, but Mark Wunderlich was by far the best bullshitter I’ve ever met. He owned me in Liar’s Poker. Once on a U. S. Airways flight from Chicago to Philly, Wunderlich, Callahan, and I played Liar’s Poker for the entire trip, passing cash back and forth from one seat to the next. We even asked other passengers to provide change for our larger bills. The flight attendants thought we were nuts!
When veteran referee Joe Crawford was charged and convicted for failing to report all of his NBA income on his tax return, he became very depressed. To cheer him up, the other refs in the Philadelphia area and I chipped in and bought him an expensive poker table. On many occasions we would play cards at Joe’s house and have a lot of laughs.
Betting on golf was also popular with the referees. Mark Wunderlich and I would meet up with Steve Javie and his friend J.D. for a round of golf at private courses near Philadelphia. We started calling J.D. “the Fish” because he was so easy to beat. On a golfing road trip to Whitemarsh Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, we stopped at a Super Fresh Food Market and bought a large fish head to put in J.D.’s locker. When he opened the locker and saw those fish eyes staring right back at him, he said, “What’s this?”
“Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes,” I replied, laughing so hard I almost pissed my pants.
Wunderlich and I always cleaned up on Javie and J.D., pocketing several hundred dollars each.
It wasn’t just golf and cards. There was always a racetrack or a casino to visit when we were on the road. The casinos were a magnet for referees, especially in a city like New Orleans where Harrah’s was only a few blocks from the hotel where we stayed. There were also casinos in the Seattle area and in Vancouver, British Columbia. On one particular trip, Steve Javie, Tommy Nunez Sr., and I drove from Portland, Oregon, to Vancouver to work a Grizzlies game. Along the way we stopped at three casinos and stretched a three-hour drive into a 15-hour odyssey. When we finally arrived at our hotel in Vancouver, we immediately went to the casino in the lower level and gambled the night away. Although I loved casinos, I was always concerned that someone might recognize me. Some guys ran into players and coaches and got scared. That’s when we decided to drive down the highway to out-of-town casinos just to be on the safe side. The last thing a referee wants is for a player or coach to get some “dirt” on him.
Referees Scott Foster, Bernie Fryer, and I used to joke around about going to Vegas after we retired and playing in the World Series of Poker while wearing our NBA jackets. We played Texas hold’em all the time and had gotten pretty good. We got a kick out of imagining ourselves playing in the final round, televised by ESPN, surrounded by stacks of chips, wearing the NBA logo for the entire world to see.
Even when we hit the court, the friendly wagers didn’t stop. Joe Crawford, Steve Javie, and I would place bets on all types of promotional events held during timeouts. Most arenas have some sort of animated race on the overhead scoreboard; for example, a race between three computer-generated M&M candy contestants. Sounds silly, but we weren’t about to be left out of the action. Looking up at the scoreboard during a timeout, the conversation would sound something like this:
“Who do you have, 1, 2, or 3?”
“I like 3 for $20.”
“I’m going with 1. Have your cash ready, you rat bastard.”
The crowd roared as the M&Ms raced down the homestretch. The winner was No. 1, and one of us would walk out of the arena with an extra $20 in his pocket.
We would also bet on kids pulled from the crowd who raced around the court on bikes or ran up and down the floor wearing the oversized shirts and shoes of NBA players. Since there wasn’t much for us to do during timeouts, we either stood around and stared at the cheerleaders—Dallas had by far the best—or we bet on the timeout entertainment. We always had a $20 bill to put down on something.
I even made a bet once with one of the highest-ranking executives in the NBA’s league office. The 2001 NBA All-Star Game was played at the MCI Center in downtown Washington, D.C. I was assigned to referee the three-point shooting contest during All-Star weekend. Just prior to the event, I was standing at the scorer’s table with Stu Jackson, the NBA’s Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations.
“Who do you think will win?” I asked Stu.
“Ray Allen,” he replied.
“I like Peja,” I countered. Peja Stojakovic was a deadly three-point shooter for the Sacramento Kings, and I thought he would win.
“No,” Stu insisted. “Ray Allen.”
“You wanna bet?” I boldly asked.
Keep in mind that we weren’t sitting in a noisy bar a thousand miles from the scene. We were courtside, at the scorer’s table, and Ed T. Rush, the Supervisor of Officials, was sitting next to Stu, listening to the entire conversation.
“Twenty bucks,” Stu replied.
“You’re on!” I exclaimed.
The three-point contest was an event I could actually influence, if I had chosen to do so. As a referee, I had to decide if a basket was good, if the shooter’s feet were behind the line, and if the last shot left the shooter’s hand before the buzzer sounded. However, once we got started, I just put the bet out of my mind and did my job. And wouldn’t you know it, Ray Allen had the magic touch that night and won the event. I looked over at Stu and he was sitting there with a big smile on his face. That’s when I realized, Oh shit! I lost $20! I gotta pay the man! I was hoping that because Stu was my boss and he was getting a kick out of all of this, that maybe I’d be in his good graces. Perhaps I would be assigned to ref an extra round of the playoffs and make an additional $15,000 or $20,000. Stu was having fun with it, I was having fun with it, and everyone around us was laughing. I figured the $20 was a small investment in my future and money well spent.
Before Stu joined the NBA’s front office, he had an undistinguished career as head coach of the Wisconsin Badgers as well as the NBA’s New York Knicks and Vancouver Grizzlies. He also served as Vancouver’s general manager, and as I handed the money to Stu, I couldn’t resist taking a shot at him.
“Stu, if you would have made draft picks as well as you called this event, you’d still be a general manager in the league!” I said.
When Ed T. Rush heard my remark, he just about fell over laughing. So there we were, a top NBA executive and a veteran referee settling a bet, courtside, at the three-point shootout of the 2001 All-Star Game. Go figure!
The big question on everyone’s mind is, “Did Tim Donaghy fix games?” The answer is no. I didn’t need to fix them. I usually knew which team was going to win based on which referees had been assigned to the game, their personalities, and the relationships they had with the players and coaches of the teams involved.
Joe Crawford and Dick Bavetta are two of the NBA’s top officials, but the only thing consistent about their refereeing styles is the inconsistency. It was almost impossible for a referee to watch Joe one night and then work with Dick the next. Let’s