Eliot Sherman: Falling victim to misguided advisors

Recently, perennial Pro Bowl cornerback Champ Bailey of the Washington Redskins turned down a $55 million contract extension. The deal would have made him the richest cornerback in league history, eclipsing Ty Law's paltry $50 million from 1999. Included in the deal was a $14.25 million signing bonus.

That's a whole lot of zeroes.

Champ Bailey's agent, Jack Reale, rejected the deal almost immediately. Champ told The Washington Post that he didn't feel the team was taking the negotiations too seriously.

What's taking it seriously, Champ? Renaming the District after you? You want a statue on the White House lawn? What is it that you need that $55 million can't buy?

Perhaps Champ is upset that the Redskins didn't trade up in the second round of the draft to nab his brother, promising linebacker Boss Bailey (once, just once, I'd like to meet the woman who named these children). The far more likely conclusion is that Champ, like many inside the world of sports and politics, is caught up in what I like to call the cult of the adviser.

The cult of the adviser thrives in the world of sports. This is not about me getting drunk, watching Jerry McGuire and yearning for a more idealistic world (that was, like, so last Tuesday). These days, players don't move, breathe or speak without calling their agent and making sure it's okay. And they sure as hell don't handle contract negotiations.

This is fine. Their natural talents don't lie in contract law (neither do mine, by the way) and they should focus on playing. Plus, agents offer a certain degree of protection against teams that can scatter damaging clauses all over the fine print. But players go too far, consistently allowing their agents to dictate where, how and for whom they will play. Every now and then I'd like to see one of them tell his agent to shove it, and take the risk that they end up "settling" for a little less than what they might have gotten, sacrificing the extra dough for the sake of team unity. Hell, just the once would do.

I'm not trying to accuse today's professional athletes of being spoiled prima donnas (whatever would give me that impression?). But there are certain situations where it would be so easy to take a few million less and do the right thing. Champ Bailey was offered a contract worth more money than most see in a lifetime, and more than anyone in the history of his position. Shouldn't that be enough? In my mind, it's more than enough, since for my $55 million, you should tackle a bit better than Champ does. Champ's attitude, though, is the dominant one, not just in football but in all of sports.

The cult of the adviser works a little bit differently in politics, but the influence is just as negative. You know that John "Al Gore 2.0" Kerry feels strongly about matters related to national defense and the military. You know he hates the fact that Bush, who skipped out on skipping out on Vietnam (AWOL from the Air National Guard for a year -- check it out) has the audacity to pull a stunt like this summer's "Mission Accomplished" landing while he, Kerry, who was only shot three times in 'Nam, is perceived as a soft liberal from Massachusetts.

So why doesn't he do something about it? Why doesn't he go on national television and call out Bush directly? Why was Al Gore so restrained on the issues that he "felt passionately" about? Why pay so much attention to the every whim of your professional handlers at the expense of your own personal convictions? When your professional advisers prevent you from being yourself in front of the nation because of how it might affect your polling numbers in Iowa or New Hampshire, you have to wonder if they've gone too far.

Advisers, of course, do this for a very good reason. By making a candidate walk a fine line on the issues, they attempt to maximize the number of people who will agree with, and therefore vote for, that candidate. You've seen politicians do this: I'm for abortion, but only under these conditions. I'm against guns, except for these instances. I believe in gay marriage on Thursdays and Tuesdays, but not on Fridays.

Wouldn't it be refreshing for a candidate to simply say: "Hey, these are my deep-seated convictions that I've held forever (not since this year's DNC meeting). Take it or leave it." But the strategists and pollsters and campaign managers won't have it.

When athletes allow their agents to dictate their careers, it often benefits them at the expense of their teams' greater good. If political candidates loosened the death grip their advisers have over them, and actually started "voting their conscience" on the issues, it might improve their election chances. It also might end up doing some good for the rest of the country as well.

Eliot Sherman is a junior English major from Philadelphia, Pa.

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