Jack "Goose" Givens Arrested

Posted on Tue, Jun. 29, 2004

Givens' arrest quite disturbing for Magic on a couple of levels

By MIKE BIANCHI

The Orlando Sentinel


ORLANDO, Fla. - This is a day and a time when we should be feeling good about the Orlando Magic.

The NBA draft has given the moribund franchise an influx of life. A trade finally was completed Tuesday that Magic officials hope will rid the team of a frustrated superstar (Tracy McGrady) and energize it with a fresh, new front man (Steve Francis). The team is trying to start anew, rebuild its credibility, restore a positive image throughout the community.

Sorry, but I can't feel good today about the Magic because something very bad has happened. The worst kind of bad. The most shocking, awful, disturbing bad in the history of the Orlando Magic: Jack "Goose" Givens has been accused of sexual molestation.

Of a 14-year-old girl.

For many of us in this state who have followed the Magic on TV since the team's inception 15 years ago, Jack Givens is the face of the franchise.

Shaq and now T-Mac have come and gone. Doc and Gabe, too. Coaches, GMs, players and PR guys have moved in and out. But Goose has been there on our TV screen for all 15 years_lauding the team's successes, lamenting its misery. He always was the smiling, good-natured, happy face, even during the saddest times. Now, we see the film clip of Givens leaving jail Tuesday morning, backed up against a wall by TV cameras, looking confused and scared, perhaps seeing his broadcasting career, his reputation, his family and his freedom flash before his eyes.

And, admit it, now you feel different about him, right? How can you not? Celebrities live by a different judicial mantra: Guilty until proven innocent. And even then, they are guilty. Just ask O.J.

The T-Mac-for-Francis trade seems so trivial today, doesn't it? In our harmless, happy little sports kingdom, we attend Magic news conferences where we ask silly questions about a draft pick's "upside" or whether Francis can play both the 1 and the 2.

On Tuesday, at the Orange County Sheriff's Office, the real world once again shattered our sports fantasyland. This time, sex-crime investigators answered a sportswriter's questions about digital penetration, pedophilia and what exactly is the definition of "lewd molestation."

We don't know whether Goose Givens is innocent or guilty of these despicable crimes, but we do know this: Even if there was no sexual contact, he is at the very least guilty of horrible judgment.

The police say Givens was giving the 14-year-old girl a private basketball lesson at her house. Her parents were not home, although a grandmother was.

After the basketball lesson, police say Givens allegedly went swimming with the girl in her pool and wound up alone with the girl in her bedroom. The grandmother, sheriff's detective Matt Irwin said, became so concerned about Givens being in the bedroom, she phoned the girl's mother while Givens still was in the bedroom.

A judge and jury likely will decide whether there was sexual battery, but the court of public perception already has found Givens guilty of behaving about as stupidly as an adult male could behave. Why would a prominent, middle-aged man put himself in the position of being alone in a bedroom with a teenage girl?

"For a man who is that public of a figure to put himself in that position in the first place is not the best judgment in the world," Irwin said.

This case will not get the publicity of Kobe Bryant's rape trial, but it has the potential to be 10 times more damaging. The Kobe jury will decide whether or not Bryant's sex with an adult woman was consensual. If sexual contact is proven in the Givens case, consent is irrelevant. Whatever the circumstances, there's no excuse, explanation or defense for a 47-year-old man having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl.

"If I were to guess," Irwin said, "I'd say he got caught up in a moment, made one bad decision and then everything fell apart on him."

One bad decision.

We talk all the time in this space about how the Magic franchise has been ransacked by bad personnel decisions. Now, tragically, we must talk about an awful personal decision made by Jack Givens. Only this decision is so much more destructive than a questionable draft pick or whether poor little T-Mac got his feelings hurt by that mean ol' Weisbrod.

This decision likely will scar a young girl's life and ruin a man's good name.

Sorry that I can't muster much excitement today about Steve Francis. You see, the Magic lost the face of their franchise Tuesday. And it wasn't Tracy McGrady's.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/9042413.htm?1c