Chris Griffin

BY PETER B. GALLAGHER

He survived FSU's darkest athletic hour to become one of its brightest shining stars.

His personal experience with student athlete abuse stays with him and his teammates to this day, 30 years after the FSU "chicken wire" football scandal rocked the national college sports scene.

Now, Tampa attorney Chris Griffin, a cornerback on the infamous Seminole teams of the early '70s, sits on the powerful NCAA Division 1 Infractions Appeal Committee - where the buck stops for collegiate sports abusers, rule breakers and ethics benders.  Griffin peruses a rules book larger than the Manhattan phone directory and joins in decisions that can bring ruin - or restoration - to the careers, reputations and fortunes of college athletes, their coaches, administrators and schools.

"Most of what comes before us has nothing to do with the actual infraction. There has already been a conviction. We don't dispute that," said Griffin, a trial lawyer with the well-known Tampa firm Foley & Lardner. "We are there to hear the appeal and to deal with the penalty imposed."

Griffin points to a recent University of Michigan basketball case to explain his point: "The university, itself, self-imposed a one-year ban on post-season play before the NCAA even took up the case. The NCAA proposed a second-year ban, as well. Michigan appealed and we reversed the decision."

A longtime advocate for student athlete rights, Griffin caught the attention of American Bar Association executive director Bob Stein, who recommended the 1978 FSU law school graduate to the NCAA Management Council in the fall of 2002. Griffin is currently the public "at-large" representative on the nation's most powerful athletic committee.

"I do a lot of appellate work, so the whole process is a lot like my job," Griffin said. "We are fully briefed in writing and sit through three hours of oral arguments with great lawyers on both sides. Most of the cases seem to involve academic fraud and improper payments to athletes."

Even though the NCAA infractions caseload seems never-ending, Griffin says he sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

"The NCAA rules have been tightened up so much, you just won't see the really bad stuff anymore. The 'chicken wire' episode could never happen today. Most of the charges originate anonymously. A lot are self reported. Every school has a compliance officer now, and everything today is vigorously investigated no matter how small and insignificant. Self-investigation and self-discipline is the name of the game now.

"No, it was not quite like that when I was playing,"

Griffin describes himself as "the smallest guy on the team," in 1973 when FSU head coach Larry Jones and assistant coach Bill Parcels (current Dallas Cowboys NFL coach) began an unusual training program designed to increase team toughness.

Players were required to combat each other in a room "covered with chicken wire framed by doweling, suspended from the ceiling to a height that forced you to assume football position - knees bent, back straight - at all times," remembers Griffin.

"It was difficult to breathe. It was brutal. Grueling exercises and physical combat. Losers had to get up at 6:30 a.m. to run the stadium steps. I was so small, that my only chance was to get maniacal when I went in there. I was lucky I never lost."

The experience was so brutal that 28 players walked off the team, leading to an 0-11 season, an investigation by the St. Petersburg Times and the eventual firing of Coach Jones. "You know, I can't even say that the chicken wire was illegal according to the NCAA rules of the time," says Griffin who stayed on the team. "It certainly would be today. We were abused by the system in such a way that it took us away from our primary role of being college students.

"It took the fun out of life. It was a burden you always carried. When you woke up in the morning, the chicken wire was on your mind. You knew it was coming and you were going to be brutalized and exhausted," says Griffin, who recently attended a 30-year reunion of the "chicken wire" squad. "It was so demoralizing, it took on a life of its own and affected you in every aspect of your life."

In addition, Griffin recalls, "we spent an inordinate amount of time in evenings and Sunday watching film. You can't do that now. The NCAA has instituted strict time limitations on the amount of time a student practices. The NCAA has come a long, long way in putting the student back in the student athlete."

The FSU athletic program has come a long way, also, notes Griffin, who was the student representative on the University Athletic Committee that hired Bobby Bowden in 1976.

"From where we were - with 28 players resigning from the team and one victory in two years - to where we are now is unbelievable. That speaks directly to the tremendous concern and hard work of the university itself."

An optimist, Griffin says his ordeal as a student athlete made law school seem "tough, but not as brutal as some students think."  In fact, Griffin has maintained "a deep connection" all these years with the FSU law school and professors Chuck Ehrhardt and John Yetter.

"My time at FSU was an amazing positive experience that I would match with anyone in the country. The FSU law school is a jewel, an absolutely superb  law school. I realize that, more and more, out here in the legal world, my FSU education was first rate."

As articles editor of the FSU Law Review, Griffin graduated No. 1 in both his undergraduate and law school graduating classes. As a young lawyer, Griffin practiced at two law firms - Carlton, Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith & Cutler, and Annis, Mitchell, Cockey, Edwards & Roehn - before hooking up with Foley & Lardner in 2001. His specialty has been commercial litigation, in state and federal courts, at the trial and appellate levels.

"Shareholder disputes in closely guarded corporations. Interpretation of casualty insurance policies. There is always somebody fighting somebody," Griffin joked.

Griffin's home court is the powerful 2nd District Court of Appeals, though he has argued a case on agricultural exemption on property tax issues before the Florida Supreme Court. As regional chair for the Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign, Griffin assisted Al Gore in his appeal of the Florida election results.

Griffin has been active in the ABA, chairing or co-chairing several committees, including the Standing Committee on Substance Abuse and the Task Force On Children. For the Florida Bar, he co-chaired the Special Committee for Gender Equality. The Hillsborough County Bar awarded him their Most Productive Young Lawyer Award in 1987. He was instrumental in luring the Hall of Fame Bowl Game to Tampa and served seven years as Outback Bowl Association chairman.

Griffin served two terms as regional vice president for the FSU Alumni Association and one as president of the FSU Seminole Club of Hillsborough County. Griffin's daughter, Jennifer, is an FSU nursing student.

Several times a year, Griffin flies to Chicago to participate in the NCAA committee sessions.

When he sits down to make a decision, does the chicken wire go through his mind? He answers the question like the seasoned lawyer he is.

"My entire experience as a student athlete helps me understand, on a very personal level, what protection of the student athlete really means. It helps me understand the level of the kinds of cases that come before the committee.

"However, I can't let those emotions dictate anything. Those perspectives are helpful, but they do not enter into our final decisions.

"We decide cases by the book, by the rules."