By Larry Durstin
Most locals will agree that it has been a fabulous summer for everything Cleveland. However, few could have sensed — until last week — that maybe one of the greatest blessings the city has received has to do with the absence of two former residents.
Ex-Cleveland Cavalier player and general manager Danny Ferry took an indefinite leave of absence from his current job as Atlanta Hawks GM last week following the disclosure of an incredibly ugly description of the Cavs’ Luol Deng, whom the Hawks were considering signing to a free agent contract.
Ferry, in a conference call with the Hawks ownership team and apparently reading from a scouting summary of Deng put together by Atlanta, said that Deng was a decent guy but that “he had a little African in him.” In explaining what he meant by this bizarre charge, Ferry further disgraced himself by going on to indicate, in so many words, that this meant Deng was a liar, con man and two-faced clubhouse cancer. According to Ferry, Deng was the kind of African who “has a storefront out front that’s beautiful and great, but he may be selling counterfeit goods out of the back.”
As this story has unfolded, it has become quite clear that in his report Ferry was referring — at least in part — to a characterization made by an anonymous someone from the Cavalier organization. The question is, who? The most logical person to blame is Ferry’s former right-hand man, Chris Grant, who was fired as Cavs GM last February and has been working his sources for the past six months trying to gain sympathy for his sacking by the Cavs.
But it could have been a number of people in the Cavs organization with whom Ferry still has a close relationship. The twice-fired-by-Cavs Mike Brown, who some would sarcastically say had no African in him, is another logical choice to have confided this nastiness to his close friend Ferry. Sooner or later, the identity of this person should come out, and the Cavs will have to deal with a blowback that won’t be pretty.
I covered Ferry as both a Cavalier player and later as GM of the team and, in both cases, came away less than impressed. Going Ferry on him, I would say in my “scouting report” that Danny was an amiable enough fellow but “had a little Dukie in him” – meaning he was a pretentious, spoiled elitist with an unwarranted air of superiority about him and a stiffly condescending attitude toward his numerous perceived inferiors. Put another way, he’s the kind of guy that when you see him in the office in the morning, you wonder if he washed both of his faces before he came to work.
Still, it’s difficult to understand how someone as slick as Ferry and as schooled in diplomatic “GM-speak” as he was could possibly say what he said about Deng. However, the smug self-importance of Ferry and (if you want to get stereotypical) other members of “the Cult of Coach K” know no bounds. But it certainly does this heart good to see Ferry unmasked just a bit.
Which brings us to Baltimore Ravens GM – and Browns Hall of Famer – Ozzie Newsome, who has found himself smack dab in the middle of the ugly Ray Rice domestic violence case. Just as the heat was getting turned up last week following the video release of Rice’s elevator left hook, Newsome – in one of the most puzzling and craven PR moves that I’ve seen in my 50 plus years of sports fandom – didn’t bother to show up at a press conference regarding Rice’s suspension and instead shoved out coach John Harbough to answer the tough questions.
There is absolutely no reason for Newsome hiding out, apparently unwilling to face some rugged interrogation. That’s the GM’s (not the coaches’) job and Newsome abdicated it. The fact that Ozzie later announced that Rice had told him the ugly specifics of his elevator assault makes it look even worse for the Browns former tight end.
If Newsome knew the gory details and not only went along with the wimpy two-game suspension handed out by commissioner Roger Goodell but didn’t bother to encourage the Ravens to add to Rice’s punishment, then he needs to be recognized as a big part of the problem. That, coupled with Newsome’s continued loving embrace of murder-accomplice Ray Lewis, should be more than enough to push Ozzie into an early retirement.
It appears that the chickens are coming home to roost for the NFL (aka The Evil Empire) and its decades-long bullying of its players by — among other things — covering up the league’s serious failings around the concussion issues and turning a willfully blind eye to its players being pumping full of addictive painkillers. It’s also encouraging to see a spotlight shining upon the subtle and insidious racism that still exists in the upper corridors of the NBA.
So, in this “stuff that dreams are made of” Cleveland summer perhaps the only positive thing to say about the recent revelations regarding Ferry and Newsome is “good riddance to both of them.”
Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. He is the author of the novel The Morning After John Lennon Was Shot. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com