On Billy Joe Hobert: A UW Investigation Or Damage Control?

Nothing bothers good reporters quite like inconsistencies.

When newsmakers change their accounts from one interview to the next, good reporters get rumblings in their guts. Then they ask more questions.

There have been a lot of rumbling guts in the newsroom at The Seattle Times in recent days over the University of Washington's handling of quarterback Billy Joe Hobert's now-infamous $50,000 loan. A lot of questions still need answering.

The Times broke the original story about the loan on Thursday, Nov. 5. It was a straightforward story that set out the facts and raised questions about whether the loan violated National Collegiate Athletic Association rules. The tone of the story wasn't inflammatory and it didn't speculate beyond obvious concerns raised by the loan.

The university immediately launched an investigation and suspended Hobert. Last Tuesday, Barbara Hedges, the university's athletic director, announced that the investigation showed Hobert had violated the rules and was ineligible to play. Hedges said the investigation showed no other violations occurred and no penalties should fall on the team, the football program or its leaders.

A committee from the Pac-10 Conference reached the same conclusion later in the week.

What set our guts rumbling was that Hedges' account of events surrounding the loan didn't square with what our reporters heard while pursuing the original story. Key people, including Hobert and

coach Don James, were saying somewhat different things than they told us before the story broke.

The inconsistencies are significant because they concern how much people in the athletic department knew about Hobert's personal and financial problems and when they knew. Those are central issues in deciding whether the violations extended beyond Hobert or whether they were reported to Hedges and the NCAA as soon as they were discovered.

The only thing consistent about these inconsistencies was they lessened the risk that the team would face any sanctions.

Based on what we had been told during our initial investigation, there was a clear danger that the team might forfeit some or all of the games it had played this season. There was a clear indication that at least some coaches knew something about the loan last spring and summer and that James learned details of it from Hobert before the Stanford game and, as he told our reporters in a tape-recorded interview, certainly a couple of days before Hedges learned about it from someone else.

But, based on what university investigators were told, the danger of sanctions was virtually gone. Hedges gave no indication that anyone connected with the investigation saw any inconsistencies or felt a need to probe further, other than to mention "glaring inaccuracies" in news reports.

It left us to wonder whether they had done an investigation or damage control.

Some of you readers may be saying, "So what, it's just a game." Some others feel pretty strongly about the game and deeply resent what you see as The Times bashing the Huskies.

Our aim isn't to damage the UW or its athletic program. But, we wouldn't be much of a newspaper if we ignored these discrepancies.

Our job is to get to the truth and report it, especially when others aren't.

Inside The Times appears each Sunday. If you have a comment about news coverage, write to Michael R. Fancher, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111, or call 464-3310.