Roger Clemens should bow out from speech until reputation is restored

Wednesday, January 2nd 2008, 4:00 AM

The coaches are trying to do their best down in Houston, hoping to make a decision that will neither embarrass their own membership nor impose a guilty judgment without a fair hearing. It's just that Roger Clemens has put the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association in an untenable situation, and typically he has no intention of gracefully letting anybody off the hook.

Clemens should have withdrawn quietly from his scheduled speech, told the coaches he will talk - same time, next year - if his name is cleared of steroid charges. He might have donated some money to the kids' teams from his non-profit foundation, then quietly fought his uphill, aggressive battle.

Clemens has done neither. Instead, he intends to speak at the coaches' annual convention on Jan. 12, as he did in a keynote oration three years ago to the same group. And even if you are one the few people who actually believes that Brian McNamee fabricated those steroid stories in the Mitchell Report, you must wonder if Clemens isn't using the THSBCA to re-stake his claim to good citizenry and family values.

"We're trying to do the fair thing, and we're doing it professionally," said Jim Long, president of the THSBCA. "I've been in Texas my whole life. And here, a man's word means something until proven otherwise. If you turn out to be a liar, you're stuck with that the rest of your life. He'll have to live with that."

And so the coaches will allow Clemens to come, with a couple of caveats. The speech would be canceled in the unlikely circumstance that further evidence against Clemens becomes public in the next 11 days, or in the quite possible event that his appearance becomes what Long terms, "a media circus."

Long figures the reporters will have their fill of Clemens after the pitcher's appearance with Mike Wallace this Sunday on "60 Minutes," and after a press conference the next day. Long may well be underestimating the media's thirst for this sad, sordid tale. The steroids story has the kind of legs that Clemens once boasted were the key to his power pitching.

The coaches don't want Clemens to pull out at this late stage. There is considerable Texas-against-the-world sentiment afoot, and Long says he has received many supportive e-mails and phone calls on behalf of Clemens. But let's face it: Clemens makes the call in this case, and the right one is to postpone his appearance.

David Sitton, a former Astros batting practice pitcher and president-elect of the THSBCA, has been in recent contact with Clemens. Sitton told Long that Clemens offered to step aside, but that he badly wishes to make the speech.

"He really wants to come," Long said yesterday. "And there are going to be just men at the convention. Grown men. If there were going to be kids, it'd be a whole different situation."

Of course, these grown men are in charge of high school students, who probably should know their coaches are very concerned about steroids both in the pros and at the scholastic level.

This is why Clemens ought to go away, even if he truly believes his own innocence. He should not be dragging other people into his unfortunate business.

Rex Sanders, executive director of the THSBCA, has heard from people on both sides of the issue. He insisted yesterday that Clemens "knows the situation, and wants to do what's best."

But Sanders also said there is another way that Clemens could help the association and the area's high school baseball players. A donation might do wonders for equipment and field maintenance.

"He's been involved with us for a number of years," said Sanders, a former coach at A&M Consolidated High. "Not financially. I wish he would. He does a lot of things, but he doesn't give us any money at all."

The association represents about 2,700 coaches from around the state. Long says that not one has told him Clemens should be banished.

"I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude," Long said. "I changed my views because of the Duke lacrosse situation. I thought they were guilty, like everybody else. Their lives were ruined. That made me stop and think. You shouldn't judge people before you get all the facts."

It is an admirable attitude from a charitable man. If Clemens shared the same outlook, he would write a check and stay far, far away from a convention of coaches who are up to their necks in a controversy not of their own making.

News source：http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/01/02/2008-01-02_roger_clemens_should_bow_out_from_speech.html?page=0