Illegal Procedure

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by Josh Luchs


  And I kept on recruiting. I went to Champaign, Illinois, for Henry Jones, the safety, and for defensive tackles Moe Gardner and Mel Agee. It’s cornfield country, about as far from Beverly Hills as you can get, and of course, I was staying at the University Inn. I found the fat chick again, this time wearing a Fighting Illini T-shirt, and again, she delivered every detail on every player. I went to Henry Jones’s apartment complex, got him to meet me later at a Burger King across from the hotel. He didn’t ask for money and I didn’t offer. The whole meeting cost me a Whopper (still enough to violate NCAA rules, by the way). Then I camped outside Mel Agee’s apartment for three hours, sitting on the steps, smoking a cigar. He finally showed up and wasn’t exactly cordial but I talked my way into his apartment. He kept asking, “Why do I even need an agent? What for? I’ll give you three minutes to convince me I need an agent.” I had to come up with something fast. I remembered a little word-play riddle I’d learned from a guy in high school. I told him to get a paper and pencil and said, “Now draw me a square with three lines.” He wanted to know what that had to do with anything but I told him to just try it. He stared at the paper and after a while said it couldn’t be done. I kept saying it could. He thought more and got more annoyed. Finally, I took the pencil and drew, first, a square and next to it, three lines. I said, “That’s why you need an agent. Because it’s all in the details. One word can change the meaning of anything. Like in your contract.” And, amazingly, it worked.

  I sold him on Mike Trope and he promised to come see us. All together, I had Kanavis McGhee, Chuck Webb, Mel Agee, and Leonard Russell, a running back from Arizona State, all promising to come see us in L.A. Or I had nothing—it all depended on whether they came. I had given money to Kanavis and Chuck (and a hamburger to Henry Jones). Once they were past their eligibility and announced they weren’t returning to school, if they flew out to see us, we could pay for the plane tickets.

  In the end, Chuck Webb and Mel Agee both flew out and Leonard Russell lived nearby. We met with all of them. Agee came to Mike’s office in Century City. He said he’d sign with us but he needed money for an engagement ring for his girlfriend, which, according to the NFLPA rules, would be an “inducement to sign” and therefore was not allowed. Even though it was past his eligibility, Trope wouldn’t go for it and sent him home. I couldn’t help feeling frustrated: for the price of a ring, we could’ve had him. Agents were buying stuff for players all the time, especially after they announced they were coming out. But Mike wouldn’t do it.

  Then Chuck came to see us. And he signed a contract for representation. We met at a Hamburger Hamlet, and Leonard Russell was there too, an arrangement I would never have tried once I knew a little more about players and egos. The plan was, Chuck was going to go home to Ohio, get his stuff, then come back to Los Angeles for his training. I didn’t want anyone coming between us—as I had done with Latin Berry and his agent. So I flew back home with him. Like a good babysitter, I took along a toy, a brand-new Game Boy, with a football game cartridge, probably the hottest toy around, and Chuck played the game all the way across the country. We landed in Toledo, Ohio, in the middle of a snowstorm, I rented an Avis car, went to his house, met his mom, and before I left for my hotel, he asked if he could keep the Game Boy to play overnight. Sure, no problem. The next day, I went by to get him and his mom said he wasn’t there and she had no idea where he was.

  I drove around, hung out at the hotel for a while, and went back—still no sign of Chuck. On about my fifth trip back to the house, his mother finally said he had gone to visit his uncle Ray. I asked her how to get to this guy Ray’s house and she told me he didn’t live in Ohio. (It turned out “Uncle Ray” was Ray Anderson, one of the most successful agents of all time, and now NFL Executive VP for Football Operations.) So not only did Chuck Webb strand me in the middle of Toledo, he stole my Game Boy. I went to the hotel and fell asleep, and when I got up the next day to drive to the airport, I stepped outside into forty-mile-an-hour wind, sideways snow, a full Midwestern blizzard—and discovered my rental car was gone.

  I walked around the lot to make sure I hadn’t parked it somewhere else. But right where I was sure I had parked was a little piece of window glass with the Avis logo on it. Fucked, fucked, and re-fucked. I ended up in a year-long battle of letters with Avis over who owed what to whom. Fucked some more. And, needless to say, I never heard from Chuck Webb again. He had signed with us, but what could we do? Say, hey, we gave you money and you signed? A player could fire an agent at any time, without reason, no questions asked. No, Chuck Webb was gone. He was drafted in the third round by the Packers and played one season. And for all I know, he still has my Game Boy. Ray Anderson was not his uncle, in case you were still wondering.

  Out of my big recruits, that left Leonard Russell, another guy we thought we had in the bag but who I never talked to again. When I went to see him in Long Beach, there was this guy, Chuckie Miller, out of UCLA, a one-year defensive back with the Colts, who was training Leonard, but mostly acting as his gatekeeper thanks to Steve Feldman, who would end up his agent. And Miller kept the gate closed. (Later, when I went to work with Feldman, we ended up using Miller to train some of our players. It’s a small world and all’s fair. You go after whoever you can, you get them any way you can, and may the best, most aggressive, man win.) Chuckie made sure that Leonard signed with Feldman and I was kept at bay. Leonard Russell went on to be a first-round pick of the Patriots and was named Rookie of the Year.

  Another strikeout. And it was pretty clear by then that I wasn’t going to hear from Kanavis McGhee again. I called him over and over but you had to be careful what you left on a message. I couldn’t say, “I’m the agent who gave you the money …” We had signed Latin Berry and Greg Townsend, but I’d had a lot of near-misses. I figured I was going after the right guys. I was getting in the door. These guys were big NFL prospects, and they were talking to me. I’d had some bad luck, but the glass was half-full. I was still a rookie at this, and still living in my parents’ house, so I had, shall we say, low overhead. I was selling Mike Trope’s history and Neil Allen’s charm, and my mom was making tuna sandwiches for players who came over. It was a lot different than most agents’ approach.

  But it was also becoming clear that Mike Trope didn’t have his heart in it and Neil Allen, well, that was an iffy situation, at best. I kept hearing rumors of Neil’s reputation and conduct not being on the up and up but he’d just say it was all rumors. I should have known something. I finally got it when Neil convinced Greg to fire me (the first time). I don’t know what he told Greg, maybe that I was a kid and didn’t know what I was doing (sort of true) or that Neil would take better care of him (not true) or whatever. But I let the fox into the henhouse and he took the chicken—a big lesson lots of agents have learned, or should have learned, over the years. In the meantime, Greg was a holdout and hadn’t signed with the Raiders yet. Neil had this lady friend for years who he had a tendency to cheat on regularly, and he was trying to salvage his relationship with her … again. So he took her to Hawaii, right in the middle of Greg’s holdout from training camp. If you’re holding out, you’re not getting paid; you’re not practicing; you’re losing ground and you’re anxious. And your agent is in Hawaii. But I was not in Hawaii. I was strategizing in my bedroom at my parents’ house in Beverly Hills. This was my opportunity.

  CHAPTER 4

  Call the Doctor: Harold “Doc” Daniels

  I went to Mike Trope in need of some firepower to convince Greg I could get his deal done and get him back as a client. Mike didn’t want to get back in the business, even for a few minutes, but he steered me to a guy he’d met while working on a case for him, an agent named Harold “Doc” Daniels. I had seen Doc before but had never met him. And seeing him was memorable. I was on a trip with Neil to the Atlanta Falcons training camp in Suwanee, Georgia, where Neil had a quarterback named Gilbert Renfroe whom he’d signed from the Canadian Football League. Doc Daniels had two Falc
on players of his own, Darion Conner, a second-round linebacker, and first-round running back Steve Broussard. What I remember about Doc was how big he was, literally and figuratively. I remember seeing this guy driving up in this big, long car and I asked Neil, “Who the hell is that?” “Oh, that’s Doc Daniels,” he said, as if everybody knew him. And I asked, “How can he drive with his leg hanging out the window?” Neil answered, “That’s not his leg. It’s his arm.”

  That’s how big Doc was. He sort of unfolded himself to get out of the car and there stood a massive character: six foot seven, four hundred pounds, gold-rimmed glasses, gold nugget jewelry, a one of a kind. He had played pro football for a few years, then had gone to become a professor at Harbor Community College, teaching phys ed and psychology, hence the nickname “Doc,” which stuck when he began representing athletes.

  He turned out to be my professor, too, tutoring me through the business. I went to see him in his little cubicle of an office, lined with pictures of him and the players he represented—Michael Cooper of the Lakers, Lions defensive back Bruce Alexander, Oilers wide receiver Drew Hill—and him behind his little desk, a stream of kids filing in and out, phone ringing with calls from every junior-college coach in the state; he was a full-time professor, part-time sports agent, helping everybody.

  I explained the whole situation to him, what I was trying to do, and Doc found it pretty funny, how I’d brought Neil Allen in and then gotten shafted by him. He agreed that if I could get Greg back, he’d go with me to do the deal. He had a great relationship with Steve Ortmayer, who negotiated on behalf of the Raiders, so if we could nail down Greg, Doc would get us an audience. I then wrote a termination letter, copied word for word from the one I’d gotten from Greg firing me, just changing the name from Luchs to Allen. He’d be out and I’d be in. I printed it up on the dot matrix printer in my bedroom on Doc’s company letterhead, Professional Stars, along with a two-page rep agreement (there was no standard form at the time), and I headed over to Greg’s house. Greg answered the door in his lounging outfit, as always. I started my pitch. “Greg, how much can this guy Neil care about you? He’s off in Hawaii fucking around. I have a relationship with you. I’m here. I’m thinking about you. You’re holding out of training camp. You’re not part of the team. You’re hurting yourself. Who’s worrying about you? Me. While Neil’s lounging on the beach.” I could tell Greg was thinking about it. I kept going: “Neil isn’t coming back for five days. Give me those five days.” And I handed him the rep agreement that said that if I could negotiate a contract for him that he found acceptable before Neil returned to L.A., he would sign with us. I told him I’d do the deal with Doc, and Greg knew who Doc was. Just give us the five days, I said. If it was done, then he could sign the deal and simultaneously send Neil the termination letter. I said I’d hold on to the termination so that if we failed, it would be as if none of this had ever happened. No harm, no foul. I’d tear it up. You relax, enjoy your vacation, I told him. Doc and I will get your deal.

  Greg was game for the idea. He was thinking he wasn’t in camp, he was losing ground, and worrying, and his agent was on the beach in Hawaii. Plus Neil had made some statements in the press implying there was a race thing going on, that the Raiders had given big money to Howie Long, who’s white, but had not given Greg what he was due. Knowing Mr. Davis, I knew he loved his players and would be offended by this. And since, at the time, there was no free agency, when a player’s contract expired, he could only negotiate with his old team—meaning market value was whatever they said it was. Neil’s position with the press wasn’t very smart for Greg’s future, nor for how Al Davis and the Raiders might view him. And Greg knew it. He wanted a deal. He signed the rough agreement, giving us the small window to negotiate for him. I called Doc, who called Steve Ortmayer, and we went to the Raiders facility. We were very upfront with Steve that we had a short time frame. And he wasn’t very happy with what Neil had said to the press, which only helped us. We put together a deal that made Greg the fourth-highest-paid defensive lineman in the NFL, not far behind Howie Long, who had already been a Pro-Bowler. (Greg would be, but hadn’t been yet.)

  We took the deal parameters to Greg and he liked them. We rushed him to the Raiders facility, and Greg signed the contract, with a day to spare. Twenty-four hours later, Neil Allen got off the plane from Hawaii, received his termination letter, and shit a brick. His little jaunt to Hawaii had just become the most expensive vacation he’d ever taken. He went wild and yelled and screamed to the press, tried to get Greg to fire me again, said he could make a better deal—but it was too late. The deal was good and the deal was done. Greg was happy, the team was happy, and man oh man, was I happy. I had made my first deal in the NFL. I really was an agent.

  And I had a partner and mentor in Doc. Over the years, Greg fired me seven times and rehired me six times. And, in between, we had to chase him down for our commissions. One time he put me off, saying he was broke because of child support and alimony payments, but he was telling me this at the strip club he’d dragged me to, while throwing money at the stripper, making it rain twenties with what I considered to be our commissions. I had a flash fantasy of jumping onstage to wrestle my agent fee away from the girl on the pole, but I knew the scene would end with a bouncer drop-kicking me to the curb. Soon after that, I convinced Greg to get a vasectomy so he’d stop having kids and/or girlfriends claiming he was the father of their kids, to protect him and try to protect our commissions. I convinced my father, the urologist, to give him the vasectomy. And I kept refilling ice bags to put on his balls for the swelling after surgery. Ah, the glamour of life as an NFL agent.

  College Student or Sports Agent: Hmm, four dull years or big-time football adrenaline 24/7?

  Not long after signing Greg, I had to make a decision: College student or sports agent? It wasn’t a tough choice since I hated one and loved the other. I’d finished a year of junior college, was going into my second year, and I’d learned a lot more in the real world than in the classroom. I kind of made the decision by not showing up for my second year at college. I was out recruiting ball players, not a good excuse for missing class. “Dear Professor, please excuse Josh from class yesterday. He was busy playing video games and chasing coeds with a UCLA defensive back in hopes of representing him in the NFL draft.” And, at some point, I had to tell my parents. That was the hard part.

  First I went to mom, hoping she’d be sympathetic and maybe help me figure out how to tell my dad. I had my whole pitch down pat: I love sports, I’ve found my niche, done the radio producing, worked for the Raiders, and now an opportunity is here. I’m in with people who know what they’re doing, Trope and Allen and now Doc, and I’ve landed a real client in Greg … I thought it all sounded pretty good. But my mom, my biggest fan, did not take it well. “It’ll break your father’s heart. You know how he feels about school, about academics. You need to stay in college.” It was not what I had been hoping for. Now I had to have the talk with my father with no help from my mom, and I was panicking. He was intimidating and short-tempered. He was the one in the family everyone wanted to satisfy. And I was about to disappoint him. Somehow I got my story out. He listened thoughtfully, and eventually he said, “Josh, school isn’t for everyone. I don’t worry about you. I know you’ll make your way.”

  He totally surprised me. He understood how I felt and what I wanted. And I knew how hard it was for him. I remember when I was a little kid in Brooklyn he put a stethoscope around my neck because he wanted me to be a doctor like him. Pretty early on, my grades made it clear that wasn’t happening, but he still hoped I’d get a good education. But, over the years, he came to believe I’d get my education another way. He’d come to the Raiders camp; he’d met Greg; he’d seen me in my element and he believed in me. That made all the difference.

  Agent 101: How to Pay Players in Eight Simple Steps, by Professor Harold Daniels

  By this point, I was really learning the ins and outs of the business fr
om an expert. My first course from Doc was: How to Pay Players … and How Not To. How not to was the way I had been doing it. When I told Doc what I’d done, he smiled and put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Son, that’s not the way.” Then he gave me step-by-step instructions on the right way to do the wrong things, and I began to employ them.

  1. Establish that the player wants or needs money. Doc gave me the basics on this one but I was already pretty good at establishing rapport with players. I knew how to talk to them. I’d say to a player like Jamir Miller, “How are you getting by? Tell me about your scholarship and what it covers and what you really need to get by.” And I’d ask, “Is anybody helping you from home? Is it putting a strain on your mom or dad or other relatives?” And the player would usually open up because I was showing sensitivity to his situation, and that gave me clues about what to do, when or whether to offer.

  2. Determine the minimum amount that will be meaningful. Doc’s approach was not to try to blow a player away with showy gifts of a thousand dollars here and two thousand there but instead with smaller, steady help. First, we’d find out the player’s situation. He might say, “I get two hundred fifty dollars a month from my mother. That’s all she can send me.” And I’d say, “Whoa, is that enough to get by on?” And he’d say something like, “I scrape by. Of course, another hundred would help but she doesn’t have it.” Okay, I’ve got my first clue. Then I’d go a little farther, offering to help him and his mom. “So if you had an extra three or four hundred a month and you didn’t have to take money from your mom, that would make your life easier and hers, right?” At that point, if I’d read the player well, he’d say, “Yeah, dude, that would be incredible.” And I could see the wheels turning in his head about telling his mom or uncle they didn’t have to send money and about what he’d do with that money.

 

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