SAN MARTIN
– Fred McGrew again put off entering a plea to a felony charge
for pretending to be retired NFL linebacker Larry McGrew in order
to get a football coaching job at Gavilan College.
SAN MARTIN – Fred McGrew again put off entering a plea to a felony charge for pretending to be retired NFL linebacker Larry McGrew in order to get a football coaching job at Gavilan College.
Outside South County court in San Martin Tuesday after the plea hearing, McGrew told The Dispatch he plans to plead not guilty.
“I’m just going to be honest,” McGrew said.
McGrew has already confessed to police and others that he posed as the former New England Patriot, but he said Tuesday that this scheme had no adverse consequence on the real Larry McGrew.
To convict Fred McGrew if the case comes to trial, county Deputy District Attorney Mark Hood would have to prove that the hoax did expose Larry McGrew to liability.
McGrew’s plea hearing was held over until Oct. 28. Tuesday was the third time Fred McGrew has appeared in court and not entered a plea.
McGrew’s legal representation is in question. Although the county public defender’s office claims him as a client, he said Tuesday he has instead secured the services of a lawyer who works for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. McGrew would not name this legal counsel but hinted that he is famous.
“You know him, ’cause he’s big-time,” McGrew said of this attorney.
At McGrew’s prior plea hearing, he was represented by San Jose lawyer Sam Polverino, who made a one-time-only, unpaid appearance. Polverino at the time called McGrew’s case “defensible” on the grounds that Larry McGrew was not harmed by Fred McGrew’s theft of his identity.
While McGrew was still claiming to be a retired pro, Gavilan fired him Sept. 9, saying his coaching style clashed with Gavilan Head Coach John Lango. Later that day, college Athletic Director Ron Hannon reported suspicions about McGrew’s identity to Gilroy police. When arrested the next day, McGrew confessed to police he was not Larry McGrew – that he had falsely claimed this to make himself more employable. He then said Larry McGrew was his uncle – a claim the real Larry McGrew later denied.
McGrew also confessed to giving Gavilan a false Social Security number, one that actually belongs to an elderly out-of-state woman. McGrew did this, he said, to protect his income from a child-support claim. Now McGrew says he just wants to get back to his true love – football.
“What I want to do with the rest of my life is coach football,” McGrew said. “I’m not saying what I did was right, (but) look at my coaching. I can coach. … The kids wanted me to coach. … I tell you this: I will coach again.”
Although the résumé and reference list McGrew gave to Lango was loaded with false claims, McGrew said much of the playing and coaching experience shown there was true for him. He claims he has six years of coaching experience and has played professional arena football and for a “highly respected college” which he did not name. (Upon his arrest Sept. 10, he had told police that, like the real Larry McGrew, he attended the University of Southern California.)
To give evidence that much of his purported coaching experience is real, McGrew pointed out that Lango called his references before hiring him. Lango previously said he reached three of “Larry McGrew’s” five references, and none made any mention of his not being the ex-pro.
McGrew pointed out that while the Gavilan team won its first game of the year with him on the sidelines, it lost its next two, including a 65-0 pummeling at the hands of Sierra College on Sept. 20.
“Those players are not playing for (Lango),” McGrew said. “They are not winning.”
“All the kids believe in me,” McGrew said. His advice to Gavilan players was, “Keep your head up. … Don’t not play because I’m not coaching.”
