Former UW doctor breaks silence, talks about investigation

On an otherwise somnolent evening on a tucked-away Kirkland cul-de-sac, Dr. William Scheyer and his wife Zelda, both in their mid-70s, were snug inside their home, watching television and enjoying each other's company, as they have through 54 years of marriage.

There was a knock on the door. Two state investigators wanted to see the medical kit he used as a team physician for Washington's softball team. They were allowed in, the couple still guarded and perplexed.

"I realized that my house was being searched," Zelda said. "I went into bathroom and shut the door. I didn't know what to do. I was scared and didn't want to be part of anything."

The investigators covered the house, taking virtually all the couple's medicines, including medication to treat her heart condition and her glaucoma. The investigators also searched Scheyer's clinic, located just 10 minutes from their modest hillside home.

"They stripped my office, took everything," he said.

They were presented with legal papers. Reporters called. One came to his door. The phone kept ringing. Friends saw them on the local news. Accusations were swirling around them.

"I never thought I'd replace Gary Ridgway on the front page of The Seattle Times," Scheyer said. "But if my wife had a heart attack that night and died because of that, then I would have believed I had killed her. And my kids would have believed that.

"The only thing I saved that night, the only thing I hid from (the investigators) was a little bottle of nitroglycerin, which I put in my pocket. As soon as they left, she started having chest pains. I had the nitroglycerin to give her."

The next day, Oct. 17, Scheyer's medical license was suspended. He was under investigation for improperly stockpiling and dispensing medications to UW athletes and trainers. He allegedly wrote prescriptions for patients who never received the drugs and failed to keep a record of thousands of doses of narcotic pain pills, muscle relaxants, steroid gels and other medications.

The state health department's investigation revealed that Scheyer opened unauthorized accounts, some in UW's name, at pharmacies in Seattle and Kirkland, bypassing the university's system. Since then, a joint criminal investigation has been launched by the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Attorney's Office, and the State Patrol's drug-investigation unit.

In his signed statement to state investigators, Scheyer admitted that he worked with a pharmacist to obtain medications for UW athletes.

"From Day 1, when I first talked to them, I told them everything," he said. "I didn't hide anything. This was the way I've always done it."

Scheyer, who has not talked about the issues since that evening, granted The Times an exclusive interview. It was an effort by his attorneys to let him talk about his experience, but the two-hour session came with restrictions. Two attorneys and a public-relations specialist were present to prevent Scheyer from answering questions about the statement he gave to authorities or his legal matters.

"I only wanted to help the students," he began. "I only wanted to work in their best interests. I never at any time profited by my involvement in UW athletics. I really don't believe I ever placed in danger the health or welfare of athletes, or any of my patients anywhere. I treated those university athletes as if they were my son or my daughter. That's the way I practice medicine.

"During my 18 years at Washington, I provided medical services. They (UW officials) were always fully aware of my medical practices. At no time did I have my own personal agenda."

Scheyer was dressed in slacks, a pink shirt and a dark sweater vest with a Huskies logo on the front. A former marathoner, Scheyer looks fit with full, Reagan-ish hair, brown with slight traces of gray at the temples. He appears younger than his age (76), and, indeed, has claimed to be 69. He says that's not out of vanity as much as a desire to keep working. He said he didn't want to be dispatched into retirement as he had seen happen to others.

"So I did what Ben Franklin did," he said. "When he reached 70, he knocked six years off his age."

Scheyer sat in a rocking chair that provided support for an injured back. He still wears a supportive cast around his waist after breaking his back last December. His wife had dropped an earring behind an organ, and he tried to move it, sustaining an L-3 compression fracture in his lower back.

"But I got the earring," he said, glancing at his wife sitting on the couch a few feet behind him.

It's clear that the two are in this fight together.

"You think this is hardest thing I've ever done?" he asked. "No. This is the most embarrassing, but not the hardest."

The hardest, he says, was in 1978, when the two were still living in Port Townsend, and his wife had most of her right leg amputated because of a rare cancerous tumor. The oncologist told Scheyer there never had been a five-year survivor from this sort of thing.

"But there's no way to tell a cancer patient there are no five-year survivors, because they will give up hope and die," Scheyer said. "They all die. I couldn't tell her."

"That was 25 years ago," his wife added.

There was conjecture that some of the prescriptions Scheyer ordered were for such family concerns, treatment of his back, his wife's health or the families of his son or daughter. He did not talk about this on his attorneys' advice.

But Scheyer did say he paid for every prescription he filled for the UW athletic teams — — thousands of prescriptions over 18 years. He said he used money earned from his private practice to cover the costs.

Audio from Dr. William Scheyer "Unjust and unfair." (:26) Real | MP3 "Right in the middle of the team." (:15) Real | MP3

"I talked to Steve Bramwell (former UW team physician who hired Scheyer) about this," Scheyer said. "You have to put in a requisition with the trainer. He has to go to the head trainer and they have to sign off. Then (athletic director) Barbara Hedges and her senior athletic associates have to see it, then the financial people. To put something in for $5 was not worth the effort.

"I always felt it was my contribution to the University of Washington," added Scheyer, who got his medical degree there. "It was the debt I owed. We pay tuition, but we don't pay for the full education at Washington. Internal satisfaction was enough compensation for me. I didn't need the monetary reward."

He said he was never paid nor reimbursed for his services or prescriptions.

Scheyer said there were times the university covered his costs when traveling with teams. There were Rose Bowls that his wife came along on the school charter. He said he had to buy football tickets for his wife, pay for parking and pay to get into the Tyee Club.

Even after the UW medical school took over the care and treatment of athletes in 1999, Scheyer continued to work as the team physician with the softball team. He was moved to "volunteer consulting physician" status in 2001. In mid-September of this year, Hedges wrote to him, saying that his services would no longer be needed.

"If I can no longer function as the team physician for softball, then that'll probably be the thing that'll hurt me the most," he said.

His time spent with the softball team involves some of the more serious allegations. One player told investigators she played injured while under the influence of narcotics. Another said she believed she was given a tranquilizer before a game. Another said softball coach Teresa Wilson wanted Scheyer around "because the athletes were always able to play."

Drugs banned by the NCAA — Ritalin (a stimulant) and steroid gels — were prescribed as well.

Scheyer would not address those issues, but said he learned long ago the difference between being hurt and being injured. When athletes are injured, he said, they can't play. He said he made "responsible decisions" and never sent an injured player back into a game.

Scheyer's purple passion is all around him even now. He treasures a football used in the Rose Bowl given to him by Don James. He still wears a Rose Bowl ring from the "James Gang" teams of the early 1990s. He will switch sometimes to a 2000 Pac-10 softball championship ring. He proudly displays his letter sweater (as a JV basketball player) and other Huskies apparel. He has a softball bat he says was kissed by Wilson and the players to express their love for him. He'll occasionally use that as a cane to take weight off his back.

Because of the pending investigators, university officials have kept their distance, he said.

"I understand that," Scheyer said. "I do not have any animosity. I think the university has had a lot of problems. But they haven't gone after me and really said bad things about me. I don't think they will. I don't feel they've made me a scapegoat."

Zelda Scheyer added that she is "operating in a state of controlled hysteria... There isn't anything I wouldn't do for him and him for me. I believe in him. I was stunned, but I don't feel I have to lie to defend him."

The couple says they sleep very little at night now. He said he has lost 10 pounds, having been "devastated by the accusations, crushed and embarrassed." Yet he believes things will work out.

"My vision is to read The Seattle Times' headline that says 'UW physician exonerated,' " he said. "I'm going to do what's right. I'm going to tell the truth, but I want to be exonerated.

"Then I want to help Teresa Wilson win a national championship. I want to help those girls win a national championship."

As the team's medical consultant?

"I hope so, but I don't know."

Bob Sherwin: 206-464-8286 or bsherwin@seattletimes.com.