Jews and Sports: Keep Your Fingers in Check

There are times when I wonder aloud what has happened to our moral compass and way of thinking.

After hearing the news that former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach, Bernie Fine, was hired Thursday as a consultant to management with the Maccabi “Bazan” Haifa basketball team, it’s, again, one of those times.

From a basketball perspective, this is a fantastic hiring for the Israeli club owned by US-based businessman, Jeff Rosen. The “Greens”, as the team is known, is moving into a new arena next season, and needs to fill those seats after finishing dead-last this past season in Israel’s Super League. Fine brings to the table his wealth of coaching experience from his 35-plus years at Syracuse as an assistant, and Israel exposure as coach of the 1993 World Maccabiah Silver Medal-winning US basketball team.

Fine will serve in his new capacity from North America, assisting the club executives on player personnel decisions, and in the team’s search for a new head coach, after Maccabi Haifa went through two head-men during its sub-par 2010-2011 campaign.

I hearken back only a few months, when first there was news out of Happy Valley, PA, where former Penn State assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, was indicted for abusing children while employed by, and working on, university grounds. Shortly thereafter, as if waiting for the timing to be just right, word leaked out of upstate New York that Fine was in similar company to Sandusky.

However, after barely scratching the surface, it’s difficult not to notice that’s where the similarities between both men end.

The Sandusky probe took many years, and heaps of bucks spent by the State of Pennsylvania, until the rock-solid case against Sandusky was brought forth, with over 50 charges against him. Fine, on the other hand, has not been formally charged with anything, and the investigation is still in its infancy, relatively speaking.

What I vehemently detest is the mindset often-times inhibited by the people of this wonderful nation. I’m referring to both sports fanatics and casual observers alike. Is it not one of our country’s core ethical values that a person is, “innocent until proven guilty”? What did ever happen to allowing an investigation to be completed before jumping to our own conclusions?

Among the many variables that call the entire accusation against Fine into question is that of the alleged third accuser, Zach Tomaselli.

Shortly after the step-brothers, Michael Lang and Robert Davis stepped forward with their accusations, out rolled Tomaselli with castigating words of his own.

Or were they really his words?

After investigating Tomaselli’s own case – he’s currently serving a 39-month prison sentence in Maine for abusing a boy in a summer camp – it was revealed that Davis met with Tomaselli, before the latter went to police, and, allegedly, told Tomaselli what to tell the cops.

As Tomaselli wrote in an e-mail last week to Syracuse website CNYCentral.com, “It has become a burden of a lie and I am sick of it. Bobby Davis told me what to tell detectives and it pretty much took off from there. The evidence that supports me is just pure luck, not real evidence. I made the ENTIRE thing up. I have never met Bernie in my life.”

Tomaselli said last week he was upset at what he called, “negative coverage” by the media, and, as such, recanted the statements he had previously made in November.

Perhaps realizing his 15-minutes-of-fame were nearly up, Tomaselli went back on-record stating that Fine did, indeed, inappropriately touch him in years past.

“Yes, my credibility with the media is shot but I’m not going to give up now,” Tomaselli relayed in a statement, per ESPN. “Bernie abused me. PERIOD.”

As for why he misled the authorities, prosecutors, the media and the public at large for so long, Tomaselli wrote to CNYCentral: “I don’t have feelings most of the time. I just hate people without caring,” adding he was motivated by a strong dislike for the Syracuse basketball program because it beat his favorite team, Kansas, in the 2003 NCAA championship game.

I’m not here to pontificate regarding who is right or wrong, in what’s quickly turning into a suffocating he-said-she-said atmosphere. All I ask is for appropriate attention to facts and detail to be paid in this ever-changing story, before jumping to conclusions.

That a man may have been wronged, and a story fabled, due to the whirlwind and aftermath of the Penn State scandal is something to consider. This rings all the more true when the corroboration of the alleged incidents has therein many factual holes and question marks.

No charges have been filed against Fine, and, to date, he’s denied any wrongdoing. So please, don’t give me that whole “what-were-they-thinking” nonsense, regarding Maccabi Haifa’s hiring of Fine. Relegate your Facebook page, and 140 characters on Twitter to something a bit more useful than typing or chirping words which, without proof, can be damning.

The author is a freelance reporter, and a former talk-show co-host at Israel SportsRadio.