THE NEGOTIATORS:Steinberg still big on green

dpt-steinberg20Text0B29588Fsteinberg featureDaily Pilot Once known for his stable of NFL quarterback clients, he now calls attention to environmental issues. TODAY: Leigh Steinberg

OTHER INSTALLMENTS:

*Up and coming sports agents: Steinberg’s protoges have been learning fast and inching toward becoming on their own. This installment focuses on a couple of interns working in a Newport Beach office.

*Athletes’ point of view: Professionals and local athletes sound off about what they think of sports agents.

*Scott Boras profile: The man has been gaining the biggest contracts ever for his Major League Baseball clients, including Alex Rodriguez and Barry Zito among several others. With an intimidating presence and a flair for being aggressive, he usually controls the flow of his negotiations.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Part one of a four-part series

Super sports agent Leigh Steinberg is back at it.

Show me the money!

This time it’s a different kind of green Steinberg is chasing. Not in the form of cash in which in the hit 1996 film “Jerry Maguire” Tom Cruise’s character, based on Steinberg, is heard yelling, ‘Show me the money!” on the phone back to his lone athlete.

This green deals with global warming.

At 58, Steinberg has changed course. It’s hard to fathom that he has moved away from representing NFL players to protecting Mother Nature.

This is the man whose first client was No. 1 draft pick and quarterback Steve Bartkowski in 1975. The first-year agent not only stunned football, but himself. He negotiated what was then the largest working contract — $650,000 for four years, including a $250,000 signing bonus.

The money grew as did the number of quarterbacks who signed with his firm. In 1998, 13 of his clients were among the league’s 30 starting quarterbacks.

Steinberg made general managers trust his quarterbacks to lead their teams.

Now Steinberg’s goal is to make believers out of people on the current projects in the works at Leigh Steinberg Enterprises in Newport Beach. They range from sports’ impact on the environment to the repercussions of concussions and supporting a candidate during next year’s U.S. presidential election.

A lot of developing plans, which also include forming a jockey league to marketing leagues to developing sports movies to bringing professional franchises to different cities to building a sports academy in China.

But the biggest involves presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Steinberg said his agency will soon launch a campaign called “Athletes for Obama.” With the possible names so far, the endorsement to elect the first African-American president into office should make global headlines.

Steinberg said the list might include Hall of Fame basketball player Charles Barkley and the NBA’s hottest star LeBron James. Hollywood, he said, might get involved, with actors Halle Berry and George Clooney joining the mix.

If Steinberg can assemble this team, who knows how strong it can be. Remember, he signed high-profile athletes almost as often as he signed receipts. Now he has them cutting public service announcements dealing with what Steinberg believes is the No. 1 issue of our time.

“We’re actually in plans to try to green sports in this country,” he said. “We have plans, renderings for solar panels that can power scoreboards, waterless urinals, wind turbines that can power the grid, and we’ve been out talking to owners, commissioners, and other people in the world of sports.

“When I was a child, I asked my father what he’d done in the war against a fascist dictatorship to keep the world safe. I think my kids will rightly ask me what I’ve done in the fight against global warming to keep their environment safe.”

One might wonder what is up with Steinberg. Does the move have anything to do with him losing his touch to land today’s elite athletes? Former USC quarterback Matt Leinart fired Steinberg before the 2006 NFL Draft, going instead with Creative Artists Agency, Hollywood’s most powerful talent agency.

Steinberg followed the first day of the draft, watching the Heisman Trophy winner drop to the 10th pick in the first round and go to the Arizona Cardinals. The rounds kept passing by, in all 255 athletes were drafted. None were Steinberg’s. Hard to come to grips with for someone whose resume includes eight No. 1 picks, a record.

“I made the choice to take a step back and reload because of watching what CAA did,” said Steinberg, who in June learned that Leinart dumped CAA for CSMG Inc., which has Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. “It’s always [disappointing]. No one likes to get close to the draft and lose a client.”

A couple of months after the draft, Steinberg lost all his clients.

“The agents that were with us before, the Tollners, are doing most of that,” said Steinberg, referring to Bruce and Ryan Tollner, who are cousins, and were Steinberg’s partners for four years. “We gave them control of that firm last summer.”

This isn’t the first time Steinberg had lost players. The other time, he accused his former best friend and partner David Dunn of conspiring to heist his high-profile clients when Dunn left the firm in 2001 and started rival Athletes First, which is based in Newport Beach. Steinberg filed a lawsuit and was awarded $44.6 million in November 2002, but in March 2005, the jury award was thrown out by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

This time around, Nick You, an intern with Steinberg, said a clientele of close to 50 athletes is now under the Tollners, who have formed REP 1 Sports Group. On the Tollners’ website, it states that many of the players’ standard representation agreements filed with the NFL Players Assn. have Steinberg’s name on them and that Steinberg will share the fees on many of the clients.

The question now is: Can Steinberg be as successful in his new endeavors?

The man known for negotiating record-breaking deals in 1984 for the likes of Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Young (10 years for $40 million-plus with the Los Angeles Express of the now-defunct United States Football League) and Hall of Famer Warren Moon (a five-year, $5.5 million deal in 1984 with the Houston Oilers in the NFL) now bargains for green carpet.

The green rolled out last season, replacing the red carpet at his last Super Bowl party in Miami. Steinberg’s doing his part to save the planet.

But will Steinberg survive?

THE PAST

Once you reach the 10th floor of the 600 building on Newport Center Drive, step out of the elevator. Leigh Steinberg Enterprises is nearby and you can see how much has changed.

Inside are framed jerseys belonging to quarterback greats, Young, Moon and the Dallas Cowboys’ Troy Aikman, former Steinberg clients. On the wall directly across, a foreign jersey belongs to the fifth pick in the 1999 NFL Draft. It’s running back Ricky Williams. It’s not his NFL jersey, but rather one from the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.

Williams is the lone football player the Tollners let Steinberg keep. The once-promising running back who put together 1,000-yard rushing seasons from 2000 to 2003, might not make it back in the NFL before the season opener for the Miami Dolphins, or any other team.

Blame the green that forced him to play across the border. The illegal kind, of course, as Williams tested positive for marijuana again in April. This will delay Williams’ attempt to return to the NFL after a one-year drug suspension, brought on by violating the league’s drug policy for the fourth time in 2006.

The latest setback put Steinberg’s client in the spotlight again. Through Steinberg, Williams, 30, issued the following statement to the media:

“Due to the recent reports about me failing a drug test, I feel it is appropriate for me to issue this statement. Last month, following a psychological evaluation requested by the NFL, we — the psychiatrist and I — came to the realization that there were a few things I needed to iron out about myself in order to make my return to the NFL as successful as possible.

“I’m an honest, God-fearing man who is intensely dedicated to being the best person I can be on and off the football field. There is no need to smear my name or to defame my character for the sake of news. When the time is right, God willing, I will be back on the field scoring touchdowns for whatever team is fortunate to believe in me.”

The statement fits Steinberg’s advice to own up to your mistakes. Even he has found himself in trouble. Twice since 1996 Steinberg has been arrested in Newport Beach for driving under the influence of alcohol. He pleaded guilty each time, the most recent came last month, three months after hitting three parked cars.

Steinberg has apologized for his actions. It’s something he advises quarterback Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons to do after being charged by federal authorities with operating an unlawful six-year-long dog fighting ring.

“When a player misbehaves publicly, the way to put it behind him is to quickly and publicly apologize unequivocally and state the proper standards of public behavior,” Steinberg said. “Apologize to every sect of people and take responsibility for this behavior and make assurances that there will be no recurrence.

Steinberg’s fame among the current NFL crop of players appears to be fading, too.

RELEVANCE

Ask Steinberg if he’s relevant in today’s NFL. He rises off his seat in his office, raising his voice a little. A move straight out of Jerry Maguire, where Cruise, no longer can tolerate the abuse from the character of Cuba Gooding Jr., wide receiver Rod Tidwell of the Cardinals.

“I did 26 interviews on the Vick situation last week,” he responds. “I guess I wish I was a little less relevant.”

From the looks of the office, a dated PlayStation2 is used as a DVD player, it appears so. Where today’s agent has banks of flat-screen TVs, Steinberg has a big TV, more boxy than wide.

The photo albums he shows have pictures of his former clients, like Ben Roethlisberger in happier times with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl belongs to the Tollners. Steinberg flips to the next page.

Moon, 50, now vice president of development at Leigh Steinberg Enterprises, is glad Steinberg is steering the agency in different directions.

“I don’t think he will ever be the super agent that he was back in his heyday, nor do I think he wants to,” said Moon, who has been working with Steinberg for three years. “For one, it’s his age. He doesn’t have the same energy to put into these younger guys. These guys demand a lot of your time and a lot of your attention. They want to be, a lot of times, with somebody they can relate to.”

Steinberg agrees. That’s why he said the agency is recruiting younger talent. One agent Steinberg is looking at is Ted Marchibroda Jr., who Steinberg said can socialize with the 20-something-year-olds. The agency is seven strong now.

“If you’re saying I should be out at 58 years of age, fighting with [bouncers], or spending all year recruiting athletes, we never did that anyway,” said Steinberg, who boasted 150 clients when he was partnered with Jeff Moorad, now the Arizona Diamondbacks CEO. “The other guys did.

“Talk to the people around me who have been pushing me for years that I can’t keep doing it over and over. I can’t. No one can do it forever. How many more first picks in the draft, second picks in the draft? Global warming, sports concussions, movies, television, a new jockey league [is what we’re pursuing].

“There will always be a few key athletes that will be exciting to be involved with, but the mass representation of athletes, for me personally, is not in my future.”

THE FUTURE

The future of three topics: the country, concussions, and earth, which are dear to Steinberg’s heart, hinge on three things.

What is the next president going to do to improve the country?

What is the NFL, and other collision sports, doing in regard to preventing dementia?

What are sports doing to combat global warming?

“We’re constantly trying to bring athletes out,” Steinberg said of being political.

Moon, who last year became the first African-American quarterback to be inducted into the Hall of Fame after passing for 49,325 yards in 17 NFL seasons, fourth all-time, loves the “Athletes for Obama” idea.

“I know [Obama] has got new energy and ideas and I think that’s something our government needs,” Moon said. “Whether he wins or not, I just think he’s a fresh new approach that people need to hear and hopefully that’ll make whoever he’s going against a better candidate. I think he’s got something that relates more to the younger generation.”

The young are also the most vulnerable to concussions.

In April, Steinberg spoke at the National Summit on Concussion in Los Angeles, where several neurologists presented alarming findings to bring awareness to concussions in sports. Steinberg, who saw Young and Aikman get many concussions during their playing days, said concussion baseline testing, a cognitive test, is needed before someone starts an athletic career.

“When he suffers a concussion, he’s retested and there’s a way to see how much his faculties have been degraded,” Steinberg said. “It’s largely in place in the NFL. The reason the NFL is key, and we were very gratified that within a week after our conference the NFL convened and they also passed a whistle-blower edict where they told players they should be encouraged to report other players they thought were suffering from concussions.

“Baseline testing is not so widely done at the collegiate or high school level. Here’s the problem: the high school brain is not fully developed. A concussion can be much more devastating to a developing brain. It takes longer to recover and the damage can be more serious.”

Another startling finding Steinberg learned came on a trip last November to Lausanne, Switzerland. The discussions at the United Nations Environment Program for Sport and Environment were about the rising temperatures associated with climate change.

Steinberg said he spoke about his efforts to help the NFL combat the issue, such as using solar panels to power scoreboards and going with waterless urinals. At the time, the U.S. was not onboard with the United Nations Kyoto Protocol, not ratifying the amendment to the international treaty climate change that mandates emission limitations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The country is considered one of the top emitters or carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

Steinberg recently fielded a call on the topic.

“I was just talking to a team owner about greening up his franchise,” Steinberg said, not wanting to name the owner.

Look at Steinberg now, sitting up and grinning. Owners still ask him how much green is needed to improve a franchise.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.