Switzer's Version Claims Reporter Set Up Player

AUSTIN, Texas - In the chapter ("The Setup") of his book, "Bootlegger's Boy" that is the basis of sports writer Jack Taylor's libel suit, former Oklahoma football Coach Barry 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.

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."'