What we have here is not your basic Philadelphia lawyer.
Richie Phillips doesn`t wear button-down collars or approve of button-down minds. At the moment, the stocky, 240-pound former Villanova linebacker has two top priorities.
— Somehow convincing the NCAA, the TV networks and the top-rated colleges to buy his idea of a one-game playoff for the national football championship. ”It would be bigger than the Super Bowl,” Phillips said. ”I think we can work out a $10 million TV deal, with $2 1/2 million to each competing team, and put on the first game in 1987.”
— Deciding when to step out of the sports world to run for governor of Pennsylvania or a U.S. Senate seat from that state. ”I have a high recognition factor and an operating base in the labor movement,” he said.
”The timetable would have to be in four or five years, because it`s tough to start a political career at 50.”
Some people who know Richard Gregory Phillips well laugh when they hear him say such things. Others who know the 44-year-old lawyer, agent, promoter and union activist just as well do not. The laughter from his enemies has a hollow ring, as if they`re afraid he just might pull it off.
He might, at that. Phillips, a rumpled, 6-foot-2-inch bear of a man (his nickname ”the Bear” fits better than his suits) is a tough, determined fighter, in or out of a courtroom.
Just ask the Bulls, who coughed up $1.25 million in 1971 for Phillips`
client Howard Porter, a basketball player who couldn`t play defense. Phillips got him big bucks simply by reaching into a bag, pulling out an official red, white and blue basketball used by the American Basketball Association and plunking it dramatically on the table. Agents still call it one of the great negotiating gimmicks of all time.
Ask the NCAA, beaten in court by Phillips when it tried to stop Porter from regaining his eligibility at Villanova. Porter`s signed ABA contract proved he had already turned pro, but Phillips found a way around that.
”What I did was make the NCAA realize that if they were gonna take away the kid`s rights, they`d better have due process,” Phillips said.
Ask the National Basketball Association or the American and National Leagues. Phillips led the NBA referees and the AL and NL umpires in a series of walkouts that have tripled their earnings and benefits since 1977.
Ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which just gave a big tax break to another Phillips client, the state horsemen`s association. Now they won`t have to pay 6 percent sales tax on each horse claimed in a race.
”They don`t call Richie `the Bear` for nothing,” said Pat Williams, general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Clearly, this is a man to be reckoned with in the legal arena, where most of the games seem to be played nowadays. Even Phillips` harshest critics can`t deny his success as a negotiator and courtroom tactician or his impact on sports. What they complain about are his methods.
”This guy just has a way of cheating people,” said Jack Scheuer, a part-time Associated Press staffer in Philadelphia. ”He`s entirely without scruples.”
From November, 1973, to March, 1975, Scheuer was editor of Sports Philadelphia, an ill-fated monthly magazine published by Phillips. He parted
”bitter enemies” with Phillips, but his successor, Ted Beitchman, found no evidence of fraud before the magazine folded.
”Richie sees himself as an entrepreneur,” said Beitchman, now at Sports Illustrated. ”It was frustrating to me that he didn`t have the time we needed, but that was only because he spread himself too thin.”
Phillips admits Sports Philadelphia was a disaster, for reasons beyond his control.
”I got involved because the Philadelphia sportswriters wanted me to,”
he said. ”The idea was sound and would have gone over if I`d been aware of the marketing problems involved.”
Phillips is a busy man on two fronts. He has ambitious plans for the future, but his past keeps returning in unusual, sometimes embarrassing, ways. Several of his former clients have sued, claiming mismanagement or misrepresentation by Phillips. Among them are former Villanova athletes Mike Siani and Tom Inglesby and ex-Penn player Dave Wohl, now one of Pat Riley`s assistant coaches on the Los Angeles Lakers.
Strangest of all was the move by the NBA referees to dump Phillips as their counsel soon after he settled the 1983 strike by negotiating a contract calling for big boosts in pay and fringe benefits. That soon turned into a bitter court fight, mostly pitting younger anti-Phillips referees against the highly paid veterans who backed him.
”I`d have to say the referees were biting the hand that fed them,” was Phillips` assessment of this bizarre situation. ”I still represent their group by court order, but it was absurd to undercut a guy who got a contract increasing their salary 62 percent and raising per diem payments to $100 a day.”
Phillips asserts the younger referees revolted to gain favor with Darell Garretson, supervisor of NBA officials.
”Garretson and Scotty Stirling (NBA vice president) used their power to retaliate against me,” said Phillips.
Now the baseball umpires are solidly in Phillips` corner, with good reason. After strikes in 1978 and `79, plus last fall`s brief playoff walkout, he got them a top salary level of $90,000, vacations during the season and even higher pensions for retired umpires. None of it was given away by the baseball owners, but when Phillips negotiates, he comes in prepared and determined.
”I never walk in with hat in hand,” Phillips said. ”I tell them, `This is what we deserve,` and I`m ready to back up my position.”
That kind of hardball has given Phillips a string of grateful clients, like the Pennsylvania horsemen and the major-league umpires. His critics predict the umpires will sour on him the way the NBA referees did.
”That won`t happen,” Phillips insisted. ”A lot of what happened with the referees was on a personal level.”
Still, the voices of those disillusioned by their dealings with Phillips keep muttering in the background. Lakers` assistant coach Wohl, once the lawyer`s close friend as well as his client, is an example. After pursuing a case against Phillips for 10 years, Wohl finally dropped it just before the Feb. 10 NBA All-Star game.
”It was almost hilarious,” Wohl said, giving up on the $15,000 Phillips allegedly took from his client`s account to invest in Sports Philadelphia magazine. ”The case dragged on with six different judges, delays caused by Richie`s failure to file, all kinds of legal technicalities.
”Finally, we ended up before a judge who couldn`t control the lawyers`
bickering. After eight hours of that, I gave up and walked out.”
Wohl insisted that Phillips had guaranteed return of the money, plus 10 percent interest.
”But it wasn`t money that made me stick with it for so long,” Wohl asserted. ”This was part of a pattern, where Richie played on his friendship with young, inexperienced players who trusted the guy. There seems to be a character flaw that makes him use clients for his own ends.”
Phillips dismissed the long-playing feud as a misunderstanding on Wohl`s part.
”Dave should have known he was making an investment in the magazine,”
Phillips said. ”He forgot the $450,000 NBA contract I got for him, but players are the world`s greatest takers.”
