Ferraro Stood Tall for L.A. Games

It was another interminable City Council debate in the spring of 1978 as L.A. struggled to capture the 1984 Olympic Games on the city’s terms, and, as usual, John Ferraro, the Council president, was in a decisive booster’s position.

As The Times’ Olympic reporter, along about 11:30 a.m., I walked up to Ferraro’s seat at the front of the Council Chambers and asked what he thought would happen in the closely divided body.

“Well, along about 12:30, when they’re all tuckered out and ready for lunch, we will pass this thing,” Ferraro said with a wry smile.

And that’s exactly what happened.

With humor, with stubbornness, with shrewdness and with his characteristic openness, Ferraro, whose funeral will be held today, fought to bring the Olympics to L.A. with the same tenacity he once had exhibited as a two-time All-American tackle at USC.

And when the final vote came in 1979 on accepting the contract with the International Olympic Committee, it was Ferraro who prevailed, by a margin of one vote, with his Council friend, the difficult Marvin Braude, providing the last assent he needed.

The John Ferraro who I knew as a reporter for more than 30 years was not a bit doctrinaire.

He supported the Olympics, yes, but not on every term proffered by the IOC, or along the lines of every wild promise.

When the late Mayor Tom Bradley considered at one point during the IOC’s 1978 Athens meeting, at which the 1984 Games were only provisionally awarded, an idea that Los Angeles could take out an insurance policy to bear any losses of municipal funds, Ferraro quickly took public exception.

As an insurance man of 27 years standing, he said he doubted any insurance company would issue such a policy.

That statement ran on Page 1 of The Times the next morning, May 17, 1978, and Bradley quickly backed away. Soon, the mayor was sponsoring the idea that a private committee should be formed to run the Games with private funds, and reiterating that he had wanted no municipal liability.

It took months, but the IOC finally came around. In the interim, however, Bradley, exasperated at the lack of give by the Olympic Committee, threatened to call off L.A’s bid for the Games altogether.

Bradley apparently was bluffing. Ferraro, however, not quite convinced he was bluffing, let it be known he would delay formal Council action on withdrawing the bid until there was a chance for more talks. It was a shrewd message inside the city, and the very next day the IOC was more conciliatory. New talks soon began that were ultimately successful.

I have a particularly warm spot in my heart for Ferraro, because at a critical moment in the city’s talks with the IOC, leading up to the Athens meeting, at a preliminary get-together in Mexico City, city aides meeting with IOC President Lord Killanin had stonewalled me on making public any concessions the city might have agreed to make on Olympic contract terms.

Coming home to L.A., I went to see Ferraro. He not only agreed The Times should not be stonewalled at the forthcoming Athens meeting, but he offered to place three representatives on the city’s delegation who would tell me everything that was happening behind the scenes. In Athens, this arrangement worked like a charm.

Eventually, the city obtained the terms it wanted for a Games that would not only cost the taxpayers nothing, but would, under Peter V. Ueberroth and with the influence of Bradley, end up making the biggest profit in Olympic history.

With Ferraro, I found you could count on an honest answer, even if it was somewhat embarrassing to himself.

This was evident last Oct. 11, when the Coliseum Commission’s executive secretary, Margaret Farnum, and longtime Ferraro friend Neil Papiano arranged for a bronze plaque honoring Ferraro to be placed in the Coliseum’s peristyle.

USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett was one of the main speakers, and he waxed eloquent, telling the crowd that when Ferraro played for USC, the Trojans won all four times against Notre Dame.

I knew Garrett must be joking, since as a 9-year-old I’d attended one of those games, in 1947, and Notre Dame had won, 38-7, behind Johnny Lujack.

But I wasn’t certain about the others. I went up and asked Ferraro. With a grin, the Council President admitted, “We didn’t win any of those games.”

As a member of the Coliseum Commission for a total of 20 years and as its president twice, Ferraro was on hand during much of another difficult period--the rocky and ultimately unsuccessful relationship with the NFL’s Raiders.

Quite openly, Ferraro was critical of the Raiders and in disagreement with other commissioners, including labor leader Bill Robertson, an ardent Raider supporter.

But there were other things about Ferraro that Robertson greatly admired.

Robertson, now 84, recalled the loving, considerate way the Council president always treated his stricken wife, Margaret, throughout the many years after her stroke. Last year she died.

“I witnessed those two at many dinners,” he said. “He always treated her so tenderly. It won me over. I could forgive him for some things I thought I’d never forget.”

John Ferraro, a defender of the city, a champion of the 1984 Games, an All-American at USC, and a loving husband. That is how he is remembered.