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We met with John McCain on one of the few rainy days Phoenix has seen this year -- and as storm clouds of scandal were brewing on the horizon of the sports world. The snowy-haired Arizona Republican sat down with ESPN.com just before he won reelection to a fourth term in the U.S. Senate, and just before the latest rounds of BALCO news exploded into headlines.
McCain, 68, has been crusading to clean up various corners of the sports world for years now, but he's also a former Naval Academy boxer and a genuine sports nut. He took our questions on everything from whether Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame to how Washington ought to be regulating nutritional supplements. And he answered them in the trademark style that has made him popular across party lines -- typically, he offers a thoughtful set response, then cracks a joke and breaks into a broad grin. But for baseball's owners and players, or boxing promoters, or anyone else standing in the way of reforms McCain thinks are necessary, his efforts are no laughing matter. Because the gadfly politican-slash-passionate sports fan made one thing very clear: new scandals would give him new opportunities to reshape sports from his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Around your office, there are dozens of framed magazine covers and one signed basketball. Where's that from?
McCain: The University of Arizona, from their national championship. It was a golden moment, Cindy and I were there in Indianapolis when they upset Kentucky, surrounded by Kentucky fans. I wasn¹t quite as loud as I would have been if we had been down in Tucson.
ESPN.COM: Why have you been so persistent in advocating boxing reform? It doesn't seem to have been a political winner for you.
McCain: Because I love the sport. Grantland Rice called it the sweet science, Damon Runyon called it the red light district of sport. They were both, and in recent years, it's been more Runyon's description, although we've still had some transcendent matches.
The thing that gets me so involved, though, is the exploitation of the boxers, who with rare exception come from the lowest rung on our economic ladder, are the least educated and are left many times after some years in the sport mentally impaired and financially broke. The exploitation of these superb young athletes who only someone who's been in the ring can appreciate the brutality of the sport, how tough it is. They're exploited, they're left with very little to show for it, and I think they deserve one heck of a lot better than they get from boxing today.
ESPN.COM: What would your proposed legislation accomplish?
McCain: First of all, there's no objective observer of boxing who doesn't believe it needs to be reformed. [This bill] would basically set up a national boxing commission or commissioner. Every major sport in America has a national commissioner, and this commissioner would set standards just as other commissioners do, for licensing, for titles, for contracts, to prevent the exploitation of the boxers. It would be basically an overseer of the sport. After the Black Sox scandal in 1919, they created a commissioner, Judge Kennesaw Landis, and we have scandals in boxing. We need a commissioner.
ESPN.COM: That seems pretty reasonable. Why has it taken so long to get through Congress?
McCain: Nevada. The Nevada Boxing Commision would lose an enormous amount of power. And the elected officals in Nevada, plus the promoters -- Don King, who is a new Republican, and others -- have invested a significant effort in trying to prevent boxing reform. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
Look, Don King and Bob Arum are not corrupt individuals. They take advantage of a system that's corrupt. If it weren't Bob Arum and Don King, it would be somebody else. They exploit the fighters, they become fabulously wealthy, and the whole system is very skewed, to the point where good boxers don¹t even have an opportunity, and others, like Julio Cesar Chavez, who made hundreds of milions of dollars, end up flat broke.
ESPN.COM: You mention Don King. He spent a lot of time traveling on behalf of the Bush campaign this fall. He even taped an anti-John Kerry commercial. Do you think he now expects the Bush administration to block your reform bill?
McCain: I am sure that the president will sign it if it passes. It's being blocked in the House right now. I'm confident the president will sign it, but I'm also intrigued by the belief that somehow Don King waving American flags is some kind of -- is going to attract African-American voters. It's an astonishing testament to the lack of knowledge on the part the leadership of the Republican Party concerning African-American voters.
ESPN.COM: Did King really offer you $1 million once?
McCain: He called me up one time and said, after we had a hearing on pensions -- boxing is the only major sport with no pension, system and probably needs it the most -- he called me up and said he was sending me a check for a million "dollaz" to set up a pension system. I informed Mr. King that that would not be part of my responsibilities. But he said he was going to send it anyway. I said, 'Please don¹t send it, because I'd have to send it back.' The check never came. [Laughs.]
ESPN.COM: Have you or your staff been involved in the federal investigation into Bob Arum's activities?
McCain: No, what we do is when we have allegations that come to us, we forward them to the Justice Department. We're not in the business of judging right and wrong, we're not in business of saying this person ought to be investigated or not. But whenever we receive an allegation of wrongdoing, no matter whats it's about, we forward it to the Justice Department and say, "Look, this is the information we have, you look at it."
Some of the information that we, that was sent to us, we forwarded to the Justice Department, without recommendation. It's inappropriate for me to tell the Justice Department what to do.
ESPN.COM: Do you think baseball is doing enough to address its drug problems?
McCain: No, and I'm deeply disappointed in a man I admire enormously, Don Fehr. I also believe that [baseball commissioner Bud] Selig and the owners are getting a free ride here, because they've said, 'Well, it was the last item in our [2002 labor] negotiations, so we just sort of let it go.' Well, wasn't their obligation to press for a better kind of enforcement on steroids than they got? I mean, this was a two-way negotiation. Look, I blame the Major League Players Association. I also blame the owners and the commissioner. It's very sad, and I'm confident that there's more to come.
ESPN.COM: How do you mean?
McCain: I think there's going to be more in the BALCO situation, more information coming out. There's no doubt that baseball right now has meaningless enforcement.
ESPN.COM: What can you or Congress do about that?
McCain: The only thing you can really do is focus public opinion on it. The owners have too much political power in the major cities of America. I mean, how else could they get the people to build stadiums for 'em? (Laughs) This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Your committee does have the results of MLB's drug tests, though, right?
McCain: We got the results of the drug tests, and we sent them on to the Justice Department. We [also] got all the information about BALCO, not just the drug tests, and sent it on to the Justice Department. We were asked by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to get that information and give it to them so they could act, but that was with the Olympic athletes, not the baseball players.
ESPN.COM: How did you get the results of the baseball players' tests?
McCain: I think it was an oversight that some of that came in with the Olympic athletes' information. But we did not reveal it.
ESPN.COM: Ten years ago, you voted for DSHEA, the federal law that stripped the FDA's power to regulate nutritional supplements. Are you happy with how that's worked out?
A. I'm not satisfied at all. The bill I voted for, frankly, I was not as aware of it as I should have been. I don¹t think there's any doubt that this was the influence of these companies that was able to get this legislation through. We need to fix it. We did pass a bill in the last couple of weeks that was signed by the President that put additional products off the table along with ephedra, but we still have a long way to go.
ESPN.COM: Do you support requiring the makers of supplements to report negative reactions to their products to the government?
McCain: Absolutely, and it's incomprehensible to me that they would not have a provision that would require them to report adverse reactions.
ESPN.COM: How much further would you go?
McCain: I think that every product that has an impact on the human body should be tested before it's put on the market. The loophole is a mile wide that has been created by the previous legislation.
ESPN.COM: Why is that loophole still there? Why has it been so hard to get reasonable oversight of supplements, the way the government regulates drugs that have similar effects?
McCain: These companies do have an inordinate of influence. It's the same reason why, when we passed a prescription drug bill for seniors, we prohibited the importing of prescription drugs from Canada, which are perfectly safe. The pharmaceutical companies and the supplement companies are very powerful politically.
ESPN.COM: You have sponsored legislation that would outlaw gambling on college sports, which is something millions of fans indulge in. Why?
McCain: I'll give you a little straight talk. It wasn¹t my idea to ban gambling on college sports. It was because Dean Smith, Joe Paterno, Gary Williams, Lute Olson, you name 'em, all of them, all of these college coaches are saying that this is a temptation out there, and it's going to sooner or later corrupt some young athlete as it has in the past. That¹s why I sponsored the bill. I don't claim to be -- I'm a sports fan, an avid sports fan, I don't claim to be an expert. But [if] the most respected men in college athletics, respected coaches, come to me and say we want this banned because we think it can have a terrible effect on these young people, then I'm going to react.
But is it going to pass? No.
ESPN.COM: The NCAA had been cooperating with you on that bill a couple of years ago, and then it turned out that they were holding events at a casino. Did they blow your chance to get a college-gambling ban passed? This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
McCain: I don't know if the NCAA blew it as much as the billions of dollars that are wagered on college sports. The casinos did a very smart job, the Las Vegas people particularly. They said, 'See, it's going to be against the law for you to engage in betting the company pool, the office pool during the NCAA tournament.' Well, give me a break, of course that wasn't the case.
The proposal says if there's nobody that gains from [a betting pool overall], then it's perfectly legal. But they scared the pants off everybody.
ESPN.COM: You are also against online gambling?
McCain: Absolutely. Internet gambling is skyrocketing, and a lot of these outfits that do it are located outside the United States of America. There is no confidence that you're in a fair game, there are absolutely no rules, no regulation.
Look, [when] I go to Las Vegas and see a fight, as I did [for] Hopkins-Oscar de la Hoya, I contribute a couple hundred dollars to the ailing Las Vegas economy at the gambling table -
ESPN.COM: Who'd you bet on?
McCain: I bet on Hopkins.
So I'm not a -- I don't judge other people, I don't tell people what to do. I enjoy gambling. I enjoy a weekend in Las Vegas and going to a show, etc., like millions of other Americans do. But in this particular case, it is not regulated, it is not supervised. It is wide open for all kinds of exploitation.
My colleague from Arizona, John Kyl, has been more of a leader on this than I have. I am told that it's very addictive, but that's not my problem with it. My problem with it is that there's no safeguards whatsoever.
ESPN.COM: So what would you do?
McCain: I would ban Internet gambling. I just would, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
ESPN.COM: Is there a role for Washington to play in trying to end the NHL lockout?
McCain: I don't think there's anything that the federal government or somebody like me can do except maybe a little friendly persuasion. This is a labor-management dispute, and for government officials to interfere in labor-management disputes, there has to be some transecendent national interest. As much as hockey is important to America, I don¹t think you can make that argument.
ESPN.COM: Where do you stand on Title IX?
McCain: I think it's fine. I think it's unfortunate, some of the particularly smaller schools have had to drop some of the sports. One of my favorite sports is wrestling, [and] they¹ve had to make some adjustments. But overall, you couldn't continue a situation where women had so much less opportunity to engage in intercollegiate sports. It just was a patently unfair situation.
ESPN.COM: Does the concept of amateurism still have a role to play in today's sports world?
McCain: I'm very conflicted on that. We'd all love to see every game like the Harvard-Yale game, where all [the players] are just out there as student athletes, but the world is different. The fans, the alumni, the networks are demanding something different. and they're getting it. I'm very concerned about graduation rates, credits for playing football or whatever. But I'm also amazed that some of these young men, like Amare Stoudamire, are able to make the transition from school to the pros and handle it. So I'm conflicted between reality and idealism. And I think what usually happens is we go through a cycle where it gets so bad, we demand reform, like in graduation rates and those kinds of things. And it cleans up a little bit, and then the alumni demand winning records and it gets worse again. I think you're going to see it continue to swing back and forth. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Okay, lightning round. Pete Rose, Hall of Fame or not?
McCain: No.
ESPN.COM: DH or no DH?
McCain: No.
ESPN.COM: College football playoff, yes or no?
McCain: Yes.
ESPN.COM: Barry Bonds, boo or cheer?
McCain: Both boo and cheer. He's going to be like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Ten, 15, 20 years from now, you're going to see him be very nice and regret that he didn¹t present a more pleasant and accessible persona to the fans.
ESPN.COM: Favorite team?
McCain: I used to be a Cowboys fan because of of Staubach and Landry and all that, [and] then when the Cardinals came [to Arizona], I was mixed. But then [Jake] Plummer took them to the playoffs once, in '97, so ever since then [it's been the Cardinals].
ESPN.COM: Favorite sports movie?
McCain: Pride of the Yankees.
ESPN.COM: If you had to pick a running mate from the world of sports, who would it be?
McCain: That's an excellent question. One of the people who would get my serious consideration would be Brett Favre.
ESPN.COM: What's the best sports perk you get?
McCain: Being able to purchase tickets to fights that are good seats. We are season-ticket holders to all the teams here [in Phoenix]. But we had very good seats, Cindy and I, at the Hopkins-de la Hoya fight. And you know, there's something to see in a fight really up close. It gives you a real appreciation of how tough that sport is.
ESPN.COM: Does your wife enjoy seeing the fights really up close?
McCain: My wife is a person who enjoys, for example, seeing all the other people who come to see the fight. [Laughs.] She's gotten better.
ESPN.COM: You played sports for a while. You were a boxer at the Naval Academy, right?
McCain: I was a mediocre athlete in a number of sports. I was pinned in a lot of places around the East Coast. I was a fairly good boxer until I ran up against some good boxers, and then I wasn't so good. I played football -- again very lightweight [but a] lot of desire -- I played guard and linebacker, believe it or not on my high school teams. I still love all sports. The mediocre high school athlete is probably the most avid sports fan. I fit that category. My wife says I would watch the thumbsuckers play the bedwetters.
ESPN.COM: Are there lessons from sports that you've carried with you?
McCain: Fair play, discipline, the importance of teamwork even if you're in an individual sport like wrestling or boxing, you're doing it for the team. And one additional thing. When I was in prison, in Vietnam, when I got beat up, it wasn't the first time that I ever I got beat up. I'm not saying it was pleasant. But where some of my friends in prison who had never had that experience before, it helped me when I was in a prison situation to have engaged in combat in contact sports. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Were you able to follow sports at all during the time that you were a prisoner of war?
McCain: We received no information for a long period of time except for propaganda. But they were able to smuggle in to us in 1971, after some us had been there a number of years, some little plastic things which you opened up [and had] some information. You know, the first item was that the Jets beat the Colts in the Super Bowl, and that to us was the biggest news that we could possibly have had.
ESPN.COM: Do you have a sports hero?
McCain: My childhood hero was Ted Williams. Not only because of baseball and bone fishing, but his Marine Corps service in World War II and Korea, and also the fact that he was a bit rebellious to say the least. I had the chance to meet him a couple of times a few years ago, and I still view that as the great thrill of my life.
I filled out a questionnaire from a magazine that said, 'Who's your living hero?' They arranged for me to go down and spend a day with him in Florida, and I was able to ask him the hundred questions that had been on my mind since I was 12 years old. Things like, 'How did you get along with Joe DiMaggio?' 'Why did you spit at the crowd?' 'Why didn't you eject from your Marine jet when your plane was on fire in Korea?' His answer was that he would have broken both knees and been unable to play baseball again. You know who said he was the best pilot that he flew with? John Glenn said that Ted Williams was the best pilot he ever flew with.
ESPN.COM: Why shouldn't our readers believe there's going to be a draft to deal with the war in Iraq?
McCain: It's not going to happen. If you had a draft, rich people would still find a way to get out of it. This kind of warfare requires a lot of training. The all-volunteer force is working. These young men and women are marvelous. And they're being neglected.
We're a nation of 270 million people. We've got enough people to go around. We've got to appeal to patriotism, but also we've got to pay them more. It's supply and demand, not unlike sports.
ESPN.COM: But the idea that we should reward service as well as find honor in it doesn't seem to be too popular among the people who run the country today.
McCain: We need to give more young Americans a chance to serve. We need to give young men and women $18,000 for 18 months of service. We need to expand Americorps, we need to expand the Peace Corps. We've got to give young Americans a chance to serve their country.
Political leaders underestimate young Americans. We're afraid to ask them to serve. They're willing and eager to do so. Look at the reaction all of America had to Pat Tillman. He's an icon, and it's the last thing he ever wanted to be. But Pat Tillman was someone who now has a place in history. Why? Because he served his country. So I think we politicians grossly underestimate the will of Americans to serve their country, particularly post-9/11.
ESPN.COM: What should we expect out of Washington in the coming year with respect to sports?
McCain: The steroids issue will be directly related to the publicity that it gets [and] what comes out of the Justice Department. So if it turns into a larger scandal, you'll probably see Congress react. In the case of the use of performance-enhancing drugs, I'm afraid that there will be more there.
I will continue to push for boxing reform until it happens. It, like betting on college games, is a matter of when, because of all the scandals that are associated with it. There are going to be more scandals associated with boxing, because the system is inherently corrupt. The best ally we have is Muhammad Ali. He has consistently -- as recently as a month or so ago -- he went to the House and testified in favor of this reform. And of course, he's the transcendent figure in the world, not just America. The reason why we've come as close as we have is because of Muhammad Ali.
[On college betting,] every college coach tells me that sooner or later, some young basketball player particularly or other college athlete is going to be tempted by a whole lot of money to do something bad.
As far as the supplements are concerned, I'd like to tell you that we will continue to address the issue, but I'm not sure we will, because of the power of these big corporations. And that's a hell of a commentary on the way we do business in Washington. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
We met with John McCain on one of the few rainy days Phoenix has seen this year -- and as storm clouds of scandal were brewing on the horizon of the sports world. The snowy-haired Arizona Republican sat down with ESPN.com just before he won reelection to a fourth term in the U.S. Senate, and just before the latest rounds of BALCO news exploded into headlines.
McCain, 68, has been crusading to clean up various corners of the sports world for years now, but he's also a former Naval Academy boxer and a genuine sports nut. He took our questions on everything from whether Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame to how Washington ought to be regulating nutritional supplements. And he answered them in the trademark style that has made him popular across party lines -- typically, he offers a thoughtful set response, then cracks a joke and breaks into a broad grin. But for baseball's owners and players, or boxing promoters, or anyone else standing in the way of reforms McCain thinks are necessary, his efforts are no laughing matter. Because the gadfly politican-slash-passionate sports fan made one thing very clear: new scandals would give him new opportunities to reshape sports from his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Around your office, there are dozens of framed magazine covers and one signed basketball. Where's that from?
McCain: The University of Arizona, from their national championship. It was a golden moment, Cindy and I were there in Indianapolis when they upset Kentucky, surrounded by Kentucky fans. I wasn¹t quite as loud as I would have been if we had been down in Tucson.
ESPN.COM: Why have you been so persistent in advocating boxing reform? It doesn't seem to have been a political winner for you.
McCain: Because I love the sport. Grantland Rice called it the sweet science, Damon Runyon called it the red light district of sport. They were both, and in recent years, it's been more Runyon's description, although we've still had some transcendent matches.
The thing that gets me so involved, though, is the exploitation of the boxers, who with rare exception come from the lowest rung on our economic ladder, are the least educated and are left many times after some years in the sport mentally impaired and financially broke. The exploitation of these superb young athletes who only someone who's been in the ring can appreciate the brutality of the sport, how tough it is. They're exploited, they're left with very little to show for it, and I think they deserve one heck of a lot better than they get from boxing today.
ESPN.COM: What would your proposed legislation accomplish?
McCain: First of all, there's no objective observer of boxing who doesn't believe it needs to be reformed. [This bill] would basically set up a national boxing commission or commissioner. Every major sport in America has a national commissioner, and this commissioner would set standards just as other commissioners do, for licensing, for titles, for contracts, to prevent the exploitation of the boxers. It would be basically an overseer of the sport. After the Black Sox scandal in 1919, they created a commissioner, Judge Kennesaw Landis, and we have scandals in boxing. We need a commissioner.
ESPN.COM: That seems pretty reasonable. Why has it taken so long to get through Congress?
McCain: Nevada. The Nevada Boxing Commision would lose an enormous amount of power. And the elected officals in Nevada, plus the promoters -- Don King, who is a new Republican, and others -- have invested a significant effort in trying to prevent boxing reform. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
Look, Don King and Bob Arum are not corrupt individuals. They take advantage of a system that's corrupt. If it weren't Bob Arum and Don King, it would be somebody else. They exploit the fighters, they become fabulously wealthy, and the whole system is very skewed, to the point where good boxers don¹t even have an opportunity, and others, like Julio Cesar Chavez, who made hundreds of milions of dollars, end up flat broke.
ESPN.COM: You mention Don King. He spent a lot of time traveling on behalf of the Bush campaign this fall. He even taped an anti-John Kerry commercial. Do you think he now expects the Bush administration to block your reform bill?
McCain: I am sure that the president will sign it if it passes. It's being blocked in the House right now. I'm confident the president will sign it, but I'm also intrigued by the belief that somehow Don King waving American flags is some kind of -- is going to attract African-American voters. It's an astonishing testament to the lack of knowledge on the part the leadership of the Republican Party concerning African-American voters.
ESPN.COM: Did King really offer you $1 million once?
McCain: He called me up one time and said, after we had a hearing on pensions -- boxing is the only major sport with no pension, system and probably needs it the most -- he called me up and said he was sending me a check for a million "dollaz" to set up a pension system. I informed Mr. King that that would not be part of my responsibilities. But he said he was going to send it anyway. I said, 'Please don¹t send it, because I'd have to send it back.' The check never came. [Laughs.]
ESPN.COM: Have you or your staff been involved in the federal investigation into Bob Arum's activities?
McCain: No, what we do is when we have allegations that come to us, we forward them to the Justice Department. We're not in the business of judging right and wrong, we're not in business of saying this person ought to be investigated or not. But whenever we receive an allegation of wrongdoing, no matter whats it's about, we forward it to the Justice Department and say, "Look, this is the information we have, you look at it."
Some of the information that we, that was sent to us, we forwarded to the Justice Department, without recommendation. It's inappropriate for me to tell the Justice Department what to do.
ESPN.COM: Do you think baseball is doing enough to address its drug problems?
McCain: No, and I'm deeply disappointed in a man I admire enormously, Don Fehr. I also believe that [baseball commissioner Bud] Selig and the owners are getting a free ride here, because they've said, 'Well, it was the last item in our [2002 labor] negotiations, so we just sort of let it go.' Well, wasn't their obligation to press for a better kind of enforcement on steroids than they got? I mean, this was a two-way negotiation. Look, I blame the Major League Players Association. I also blame the owners and the commissioner. It's very sad, and I'm confident that there's more to come.
ESPN.COM: How do you mean?
McCain: I think there's going to be more in the BALCO situation, more information coming out. There's no doubt that baseball right now has meaningless enforcement.
ESPN.COM: What can you or Congress do about that?
McCain: The only thing you can really do is focus public opinion on it. The owners have too much political power in the major cities of America. I mean, how else could they get the people to build stadiums for 'em? (Laughs) This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Your committee does have the results of MLB's drug tests, though, right?
McCain: We got the results of the drug tests, and we sent them on to the Justice Department. We [also] got all the information about BALCO, not just the drug tests, and sent it on to the Justice Department. We were asked by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to get that information and give it to them so they could act, but that was with the Olympic athletes, not the baseball players.
ESPN.COM: How did you get the results of the baseball players' tests?
McCain: I think it was an oversight that some of that came in with the Olympic athletes' information. But we did not reveal it.
ESPN.COM: Ten years ago, you voted for DSHEA, the federal law that stripped the FDA's power to regulate nutritional supplements. Are you happy with how that's worked out?
A. I'm not satisfied at all. The bill I voted for, frankly, I was not as aware of it as I should have been. I don¹t think there's any doubt that this was the influence of these companies that was able to get this legislation through. We need to fix it. We did pass a bill in the last couple of weeks that was signed by the President that put additional products off the table along with ephedra, but we still have a long way to go.
ESPN.COM: Do you support requiring the makers of supplements to report negative reactions to their products to the government?
McCain: Absolutely, and it's incomprehensible to me that they would not have a provision that would require them to report adverse reactions.
ESPN.COM: How much further would you go?
McCain: I think that every product that has an impact on the human body should be tested before it's put on the market. The loophole is a mile wide that has been created by the previous legislation.
ESPN.COM: Why is that loophole still there? Why has it been so hard to get reasonable oversight of supplements, the way the government regulates drugs that have similar effects?
McCain: These companies do have an inordinate of influence. It's the same reason why, when we passed a prescription drug bill for seniors, we prohibited the importing of prescription drugs from Canada, which are perfectly safe. The pharmaceutical companies and the supplement companies are very powerful politically.
ESPN.COM: You have sponsored legislation that would outlaw gambling on college sports, which is something millions of fans indulge in. Why?
McCain: I'll give you a little straight talk. It wasn¹t my idea to ban gambling on college sports. It was because Dean Smith, Joe Paterno, Gary Williams, Lute Olson, you name 'em, all of them, all of these college coaches are saying that this is a temptation out there, and it's going to sooner or later corrupt some young athlete as it has in the past. That¹s why I sponsored the bill. I don't claim to be -- I'm a sports fan, an avid sports fan, I don't claim to be an expert. But [if] the most respected men in college athletics, respected coaches, come to me and say we want this banned because we think it can have a terrible effect on these young people, then I'm going to react.
But is it going to pass? No.
ESPN.COM: The NCAA had been cooperating with you on that bill a couple of years ago, and then it turned out that they were holding events at a casino. Did they blow your chance to get a college-gambling ban passed? This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
McCain: I don't know if the NCAA blew it as much as the billions of dollars that are wagered on college sports. The casinos did a very smart job, the Las Vegas people particularly. They said, 'See, it's going to be against the law for you to engage in betting the company pool, the office pool during the NCAA tournament.' Well, give me a break, of course that wasn't the case.
The proposal says if there's nobody that gains from [a betting pool overall], then it's perfectly legal. But they scared the pants off everybody.
ESPN.COM: You are also against online gambling?
McCain: Absolutely. Internet gambling is skyrocketing, and a lot of these outfits that do it are located outside the United States of America. There is no confidence that you're in a fair game, there are absolutely no rules, no regulation.
Look, [when] I go to Las Vegas and see a fight, as I did [for] Hopkins-Oscar de la Hoya, I contribute a couple hundred dollars to the ailing Las Vegas economy at the gambling table -
ESPN.COM: Who'd you bet on?
McCain: I bet on Hopkins.
So I'm not a -- I don't judge other people, I don't tell people what to do. I enjoy gambling. I enjoy a weekend in Las Vegas and going to a show, etc., like millions of other Americans do. But in this particular case, it is not regulated, it is not supervised. It is wide open for all kinds of exploitation.
My colleague from Arizona, John Kyl, has been more of a leader on this than I have. I am told that it's very addictive, but that's not my problem with it. My problem with it is that there's no safeguards whatsoever.
ESPN.COM: So what would you do?
McCain: I would ban Internet gambling. I just would, but I don't know if that's going to happen.
ESPN.COM: Is there a role for Washington to play in trying to end the NHL lockout?
McCain: I don't think there's anything that the federal government or somebody like me can do except maybe a little friendly persuasion. This is a labor-management dispute, and for government officials to interfere in labor-management disputes, there has to be some transecendent national interest. As much as hockey is important to America, I don¹t think you can make that argument.
ESPN.COM: Where do you stand on Title IX?
McCain: I think it's fine. I think it's unfortunate, some of the particularly smaller schools have had to drop some of the sports. One of my favorite sports is wrestling, [and] they¹ve had to make some adjustments. But overall, you couldn't continue a situation where women had so much less opportunity to engage in intercollegiate sports. It just was a patently unfair situation.
ESPN.COM: Does the concept of amateurism still have a role to play in today's sports world?
McCain: I'm very conflicted on that. We'd all love to see every game like the Harvard-Yale game, where all [the players] are just out there as student athletes, but the world is different. The fans, the alumni, the networks are demanding something different. and they're getting it. I'm very concerned about graduation rates, credits for playing football or whatever. But I'm also amazed that some of these young men, like Amare Stoudamire, are able to make the transition from school to the pros and handle it. So I'm conflicted between reality and idealism. And I think what usually happens is we go through a cycle where it gets so bad, we demand reform, like in graduation rates and those kinds of things. And it cleans up a little bit, and then the alumni demand winning records and it gets worse again. I think you're going to see it continue to swing back and forth. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Okay, lightning round. Pete Rose, Hall of Fame or not?
McCain: No.
ESPN.COM: DH or no DH?
McCain: No.
ESPN.COM: College football playoff, yes or no?
McCain: Yes.
ESPN.COM: Barry Bonds, boo or cheer?
McCain: Both boo and cheer. He's going to be like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Ten, 15, 20 years from now, you're going to see him be very nice and regret that he didn¹t present a more pleasant and accessible persona to the fans.
ESPN.COM: Favorite team?
McCain: I used to be a Cowboys fan because of of Staubach and Landry and all that, [and] then when the Cardinals came [to Arizona], I was mixed. But then [Jake] Plummer took them to the playoffs once, in '97, so ever since then [it's been the Cardinals].
ESPN.COM: Favorite sports movie?
McCain: Pride of the Yankees.
ESPN.COM: If you had to pick a running mate from the world of sports, who would it be?
McCain: That's an excellent question. One of the people who would get my serious consideration would be Brett Favre.
ESPN.COM: What's the best sports perk you get?
McCain: Being able to purchase tickets to fights that are good seats. We are season-ticket holders to all the teams here [in Phoenix]. But we had very good seats, Cindy and I, at the Hopkins-de la Hoya fight. And you know, there's something to see in a fight really up close. It gives you a real appreciation of how tough that sport is.
ESPN.COM: Does your wife enjoy seeing the fights really up close?
McCain: My wife is a person who enjoys, for example, seeing all the other people who come to see the fight. [Laughs.] She's gotten better.
ESPN.COM: You played sports for a while. You were a boxer at the Naval Academy, right?
McCain: I was a mediocre athlete in a number of sports. I was pinned in a lot of places around the East Coast. I was a fairly good boxer until I ran up against some good boxers, and then I wasn't so good. I played football -- again very lightweight [but a] lot of desire -- I played guard and linebacker, believe it or not on my high school teams. I still love all sports. The mediocre high school athlete is probably the most avid sports fan. I fit that category. My wife says I would watch the thumbsuckers play the bedwetters.
ESPN.COM: Are there lessons from sports that you've carried with you?
McCain: Fair play, discipline, the importance of teamwork even if you're in an individual sport like wrestling or boxing, you're doing it for the team. And one additional thing. When I was in prison, in Vietnam, when I got beat up, it wasn't the first time that I ever I got beat up. I'm not saying it was pleasant. But where some of my friends in prison who had never had that experience before, it helped me when I was in a prison situation to have engaged in combat in contact sports. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
ESPN.COM: Were you able to follow sports at all during the time that you were a prisoner of war?
McCain: We received no information for a long period of time except for propaganda. But they were able to smuggle in to us in 1971, after some us had been there a number of years, some little plastic things which you opened up [and had] some information. You know, the first item was that the Jets beat the Colts in the Super Bowl, and that to us was the biggest news that we could possibly have had.
ESPN.COM: Do you have a sports hero?
McCain: My childhood hero was Ted Williams. Not only because of baseball and bone fishing, but his Marine Corps service in World War II and Korea, and also the fact that he was a bit rebellious to say the least. I had the chance to meet him a couple of times a few years ago, and I still view that as the great thrill of my life.
I filled out a questionnaire from a magazine that said, 'Who's your living hero?' They arranged for me to go down and spend a day with him in Florida, and I was able to ask him the hundred questions that had been on my mind since I was 12 years old. Things like, 'How did you get along with Joe DiMaggio?' 'Why did you spit at the crowd?' 'Why didn't you eject from your Marine jet when your plane was on fire in Korea?' His answer was that he would have broken both knees and been unable to play baseball again. You know who said he was the best pilot that he flew with? John Glenn said that Ted Williams was the best pilot he ever flew with.
ESPN.COM: Why shouldn't our readers believe there's going to be a draft to deal with the war in Iraq?
McCain: It's not going to happen. If you had a draft, rich people would still find a way to get out of it. This kind of warfare requires a lot of training. The all-volunteer force is working. These young men and women are marvelous. And they're being neglected.
We're a nation of 270 million people. We've got enough people to go around. We've got to appeal to patriotism, but also we've got to pay them more. It's supply and demand, not unlike sports.
ESPN.COM: But the idea that we should reward service as well as find honor in it doesn't seem to be too popular among the people who run the country today.
McCain: We need to give more young Americans a chance to serve. We need to give young men and women $18,000 for 18 months of service. We need to expand Americorps, we need to expand the Peace Corps. We've got to give young Americans a chance to serve their country.
Political leaders underestimate young Americans. We're afraid to ask them to serve. They're willing and eager to do so. Look at the reaction all of America had to Pat Tillman. He's an icon, and it's the last thing he ever wanted to be. But Pat Tillman was someone who now has a place in history. Why? Because he served his country. So I think we politicians grossly underestimate the will of Americans to serve their country, particularly post-9/11.
ESPN.COM: What should we expect out of Washington in the coming year with respect to sports?
McCain: The steroids issue will be directly related to the publicity that it gets [and] what comes out of the Justice Department. So if it turns into a larger scandal, you'll probably see Congress react. In the case of the use of performance-enhancing drugs, I'm afraid that there will be more there.
I will continue to push for boxing reform until it happens. It, like betting on college games, is a matter of when, because of all the scandals that are associated with it. There are going to be more scandals associated with boxing, because the system is inherently corrupt. The best ally we have is Muhammad Ali. He has consistently -- as recently as a month or so ago -- he went to the House and testified in favor of this reform. And of course, he's the transcendent figure in the world, not just America. The reason why we've come as close as we have is because of Muhammad Ali.
[On college betting,] every college coach tells me that sooner or later, some young basketball player particularly or other college athlete is going to be tempted by a whole lot of money to do something bad.
As far as the supplements are concerned, I'd like to tell you that we will continue to address the issue, but I'm not sure we will, because of the power of these big corporations. And that's a hell of a commentary on the way we do business in Washington. This interview was conducted by ESPN.com
