Williams '72 speaks on reporting BALCO steroids scandal
Peter Cipparone
Issue date: 3/21/07 Section: Campus News
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The talk was hosted by The Herald, Alumni Relations and Campus Life and Student Services and featured a discussion between Williams and former Herald Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Ellis '06.
Williams and co-author Mark Fainaru-Wada brought national attention to the steroid scandal in professional sports with their articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and subsequent book. He said one of his most important sources of information for the story was Kim Bell, the ex-girlfriend of San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
"She had kept all kinds of things from her relationship with Bonds," Williams said, explaining that Bell had documents to support her claims. "After the book came out, I did get a chance to talk to her. … She said, 'Well I liked it. People could see I was telling the truth.' "
But Bell told Williams she saw one problem with the book - she felt it lacked an ending.
"At first I was really troubled by this because actually I thought the book's ending was like a piece of music by Mozart," Williams joked. What Bell meant by the comment, Williams said, was that the steroid scandal is ongoing. Bonds has not been convicted of using or buying illegal steroids and Major League Baseball remains in the midst of conducting its own extensive investigation into steroid use by players led by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.
Though Bell agreed to go on the record for the story, Williams and Fainaru-Wada obtained much information from confidential sources whose identities they promised not to reveal.
Last year, both writers were sentenced to 18 months in jail, pending appeal, for refusing to comply with a federal subpoena that mandated they disclose their source for the athletes' sealed grand jury testimony. The 18 months would have been more jail time than the four months Victor Conte, BALCO's founder, received for his role in distributing the illegal drugs.