Donaghy, Tim - NBA Referee "After the Buzzer" ...

After the Buzzer

By PAT JORDAN

January 7, 2011

I first meet Tim Donaghy on a cold November evening in Sarasota, Fla., a year after he left prison. He looks leaner than he did as an N.B.A. ref, almost gaunt, with a long face and prominent, rabbity teeth. Tonight is family-dinner night — he has chosen an Italian joint in the town’s upmarket mini-mall — and around Donaghy sit his newish girlfriend, Carolyn; her 12–year–old daughter; and his own preteen girls, Bridget and Molly. His two other daughters, both teenagers, declined the invitation, wanting nothing to do with their father or this dinner.

It has not been easy for Donaghy to reconnect with his four girls. “They’re loyal to my ex-wife,” he says, “not me.” Bridget is silent with him all night; Molly, a freckle-faced sprite, defiant. He told her to wear long pants on this chilly evening. She’s wearing shorts to show off her new Uggs.

For the 13 years he was an N.B.A. referee, Donaghy was a traveling dad, gone from his daughters for days at a time and then over-the-top effusive when at home. But in 2007, Donaghy was arrested for using, and then sharing, his knowledge of league directives, the personalities of fellow refs, the philosophies of N.B.A. coaches and the physical condition of players to place bets on league games, including some he officiated. “No different than Wall Street insider trading,” he says now. “Except I didn’t affect the economy.” He became, in the media, “the rogue ref,” “the fixer ref,” “the disgraced ref” who “ratted out” his friends and fellow officials to save his own skin. And things with his girls haven’t been the same since. “It’s devastating to me,” he says.

During his 15 months in detention — split between federal prisons and a halfway house and including 15 days in solitary confinement — Donaghy also grew estranged from his wife and more than a few close friends. He didn’t make any new ones on the inside, either. When he informed the warden of all the gambling that was taking place within his Pensacola prison camp, Donaghy heard “rumblings about physical retaliation.” A few days later, he walked past an inmate who screamed, “Rat! Rat! Rat!” before whacking him on the knee with a long-handled paint roller. Eventually Donaghy needed an operation, which he had to pay for himself.

Despite his conviction, Donaghy is known more as a celebrity than as a felon in Sarasota. At our dinner together, a white-haired man at another table waved Donaghy over just to chat him up, and smiling women regularly approach him on the street. “Most guys come out of prison, no one knows them,” Carolyn, tells me, clearly tickled. “But after Tim appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ last December, everyone knew him.”

Notoriety is one thing; gainful employment another. When Donaghy got out of prison, he sent out 150 job résumés and a cover letter explaining his past. A prospective employer summoned him for an interview without having read his note. “The guy says: ‘Hey Tim, you’re terrific. An N.B.A. ref! Why’d you leave such a great job?’ ” Donaghy says. “The man never read my letter. He thought I quit a $300,000 job for a $47,500 one. After he did read it, he said, ‘Uh, I don’t think you’re going to work out.’ ”

Few other opportunities have worked out. Donaghy told me that he hasn’t seen a penny from his tell-all book, “Personal Foul.” He spoke at a gambling-treatment center, but he says the man who ran it never paid him. A Vegas casino asked him to be its N.B.A. handicapper for $10,000 a month; it even offered to pay him $7,500 just to use his image and reputation. But Donaghy’s probation officer forbade him from accepting the gig. He’s paying his bills now by blogging and commenting on the air for an Allentown, Pa., radio show called the Sports Connection. He also makes $5,000 per speaking engagement, like the one he booked at a convention on problem gambling in Sacramento, where he told his life story as the keynote speaker. He hopes to someday become the host of a sports-radio talk show.

The afternoon after the family dinner, we get into his 11-year-old BMW (“My mother-in-law smashed it up twice when I was in prison”) and drive to Molly’s softball game. Quality family time. We sit high up in the bleachers to take in the spectacle: shrieking little girls, softballs thrown all over the field. Molly wears pink batting gloves and a pink batting helmet. Donaghy then points to a woman below us bundled in a blanket: his ex-wife, Kim. Later, they’ll pass each other in silence, eyes averted.

In the last inning of the game, Molly comes to bat with the score tied and the bases loaded. Donaghy yells out, “Come on, Molly!” She tugs on her helmet, taps her bat in the dirt, digs in her feet and then hits a game-winning single over second base. The girls and parents and Donaghy are all screaming; Molly’s teammates are thumping her on the back. Then, as Donaghy and I walk down the bleachers, we watch as girls from both teams shake hands. He gives me this look that falls somewhere between amused and disgusted. “When I played,” he says, laughing, “you punched out the guy who beat you.”

Pat Jordan is a contributing writer for the magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09FOB-Encounter-t.html