Rozelle

  including a request they no longer be required to buy their own

  shoes. And the owners still wondered why the players might like

  a union of their own.

  Paul Brown, owner of the Cleveland franchise, later recalled

  that “they didn’t realize it was an interlude in their lives . . . the good old days . . . a time when it wasn’t a career and they were

  young and fresh with a zest to play the game [for the fun of it].”

  And the owners wondered why the players might like a union of

  their own.

  Like all sports unions, the history of the goals, the struggles,

  and, yes, later the ultimate excesses of the nflpa were rooted in

  the past sins of management. Football was not alone. The very

  same year that nfl players were trying to get the owners to buy

  their shoes, a lawyer named Robert Murphy set out to organize

  the Pittsburgh Pirates of the National Baseball League and led

  them to the brink of a strike.

  But then a pitcher named Rip Sewell killed the union in a locker

  room speech that pointed out the difference between real base-

  ball players and union members. He might have been right if you

  measured that in the volume of alcohol consumed and the poorly

  treated social diseases of those who opposed collective action. The

  strikes never happened, and when he retired Sewell got a gold

  watch from management— but no pension.

  In any event it was the threat of a Mexican millionaire named

  Jorge Pasquel, who, in the 1940s, offered large sums of money for

  Americans to jump to his outlaw Mexican League, that began to

  awaken the players slowly toward the action that created the great-

  est labor leader in sports history— Marvin Miller. And a fellow

  named Larry Fleisher did the same for the nba, creating previ-

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  Power to the Tackles

  ously unheard- of average salaries of one hundred thousand dollars.

  “I consider much of our success was due to the owners’ stupid-

  ity,” he once told me. And through all of this, pro football play-

  ers lumbered along.

  From the small informal group that petitioned Bell, nothing

  much happened. Of necessity it was more social than activist.

  They were told over and over, “You are professionals, not time-

  clock punchers. Don’t let them ruin your game.” It was both flat-

  tering and effective until March 18, 1968, when John Gordy, an

  offensive lineman with the Detroit Lions, presented Art Modell,

  representing the owners, with a twenty- five- page document that

  set forth the neophyte nflpa’s demands.

  By the standards of what later followed, these demands were

  hardly Emma Goldman at the oratorical barricades shouting, “Let

  the bosses take the losses.” Among the major demands were no dis-

  crimination against players because of race, religion, or national origin; a fifteen- thousand- dollar minimum salary; an annual owners’

  donation of five million dollars to a pension fund; and a review of

  the option clause. “As with any union,” Gordy said, “these demands

  are negotiable.” Clearly, this group was not preparing to launch

  anther bloody Harlan County, Kentucky, coal strike.

  Moreover, the owners were far ahead in this game, and they

  knew it. Several months earlier Harold Gibbons, a power in the

  Teamsters Union operating out of St. Louis, had formed an alli-

  ance with a disgruntled Cleveland Browns player named Bernie

  Parrish. Together they had made a serious run at organizing pro

  football players. At one point he claimed to have ninety of them

  who had expressed a desire to join that union.

  Somebody— nobody ever really established the identity— had

  put up a lot of money for Parrish to go on a whirlwind tour around

  the country to enlist the help of the media. When I talked with

  him in New York one day, he showed me a copy of a legal brief

  filed by Jim Ninowski, a journeyman quarterback with the Browns,

  that, had it ever come to court, would have put the league’s stan-

  dard contract under massive fire.

  Power to the Tackles

  179

  He was extremely vocal over what he called “the owners’ blackball policies.” He attacked the league’s most vulnerable area, the league’s unwritten racial discrimination. Parrish was making progress.

  But then on January 27, 1968— eight years into Rozelle’s

  commissionership— the Lions’ Gordy delivered an impassioned

  speech at the Hollywood Beach Hotel in Hollywood, Florida, to

  the members of both the nflpa and the aflpa, at the time still

  separate groups. The room was packed.

  Without naming either the Teamsters or Parrish, Gordy said

  that “four or five teams have indicated a willingness to sign with

  an outside union. But I don’t want my family to be associated with

  the type of people who are trying to get into pro football.”

  Then to forestall what he saw as an attempt at a Teamster take-

  over of the nfl’s collective bargaining, Gordy passed out sign- up

  sheets designed to get enough proxies and now combined mem-

  bers from both leagues to petition the National Labor Relations

  Board (nlrb) for official union status.

  He had entered the room as the president of a loosely orga-

  nized social club. He left as the head of a newly empowered group

  of players that would change the entire labor structure of profes-

  sional football.

  When Gordy beat back the Teamsters’ charge, nfl owners were

  thrilled— until Gordy realized that he had to show his own mem-

  bers something in the way of progress. As Gordy’s twenty- five-

  page manifesto remained untouched by ownership, he asked for

  and received a strike- authorization vote— the first in the history

  of the game. They called it to start on preseason camp.

  Soon after it began many players expressed doubt as to whether

  they needed or could manage a strike. Others seemed to come

  closer together.

  In Green Bay a twenty- eight- year- old sometime starter with

  the Green Bay Packers spoke to me with the promise of anonym-

  ity. That was long ago, and today that need is obviously gone. His

  name was Doug Hart. This is what he told me:

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  Power to the Tackles

  The salary has nothing to do with it. It’s the pension plan. They [the owners] are getting all that punitive- damage money from the afl.

  They could throw some of it in our direction. We are willing to cut

  our demands to seventy- five thousand dollars per club. Half of that

  becomes a write- off for them. So it costs them what? Forty grand?

  When they called me on the strike vote, I was shocked. I never

  thought it would get that far. Then I thought about guys who get paid

  what I do on other clubs and never are lucky enough to be with teams

  good enough to earn playoff money. I had to think beyond myself. I

  had to be loyal to them.

  I don’t want a strike, but don’t get me wrong. I won’t back away. If

  they lock us out, it would be tough, but I could sit for a year. Hell, it would be a piece of my life. By July you know you are looking ahead

  because you played in high school, you playe
d in college, you played

  here. It’s the way your life has been laid out.

  I think a shutdown or a sit- out would be stupid.

  For the view from the other end of the spectrum— the super-

  star— I went to John Unitas.

  “Right from the start the owners have tried everything not to

  recognize us. They worried that someday we would quit squabbling

  among ourselves, and they knew that when that day came, they

  would be afraid they would be in for some hard bargaining, Well,

  they were right. All you have to do is read the standard player’s con-

  tract. It’s an owner’s contract. Only a jerk wouldn’t recognize that.”

  On July 14 the strike ended. Through the negotiations Rozelle

  had been very quiet, although we know he did, in fact, meet with

  both Modell and Gordy. When the strike threat was first raised,

  Modell asked me, “What do they want? Do they want to reduce

  40- yard sprints to 25 yards? This has no merit.” Gordy, conversely,

  was the first successful player to organize, even though his results

  were modest.

  Rozelle’s “soft- line,” back- door approach, even though he met

  them without the knowledge of the management council, was

  effective. His low- key, unpublicized approach quietly put together

  Power to the Tackles

  181

  a temporary peace. But he knew what waited just around the corner. Actually, it had been out there all the time.

  In 1938 a guard named William Radovich joined the Lions after

  a distinguished college career at usc. He played five years for them

  and left for military service in World War II. Upon his return

  he jumped to the Los Angeles Dons of the All- America Football

  Conference. When the league folded, his desire to return to the

  nfl was impeded, he claimed by an owners’ blackball.

  Nobody remembers the All- America Football Conference.

  Nobody remembers the Los Angeles Dons, and almost nobody

  remembers William Radovich. Nobody except every lawyer who

  ever worked on an nfl antitrust case— particularly if they were

  employed by the nfl.

  Because of him the United States Supreme Court voted 6– 3

  that pro football did indeed come under the federal antitrust laws.

  It was the Radovich case that sent Rozelle to Representative

  Manny Celler of New York to get approval for the nfl televi-

  sion contract. It was the Radovich case that sent Rozelle to Rus-

  sell Long and Hale Boggs to get consent for the nfl- afl merger.

  It was the Radovich case that leaves the specter of antitrust action

  hanging over the nfl even now.

  And, perhaps, its greatest impact was on a Baltimore tight end,

  the late John Mackey, who was a driving force in the nflpa and

  hired the Minneapolis law firm of Lindquist & Vennum. The nfl

  had been beaten by Radovich in the courts, Mackey reasoned, so

  maybe that’s where the players needed to go more often.

  His new legal firm assigned a young lawyer named Ed Garvey

  to advise him. It didn’t take long for Garvey to go from adviser

  to executive director. Now, the battle lines were drawn, and

  they would have warmed the heart of John L. Lewis. If Garvey

  needed to design a playbook, he couldn’t have come up with a

  better model than the nfl standard player’s contract. The labor

  problems laid out within it would function as a giant buffet table

  for the union.

  Labor historians refer to them as the freedom issues. They

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  Power to the Tackles

  included management’s right to deal with every player’s personal life on a certain level, its right to fine him, its right to bind him

  to management for a year after his contract runs out, and then to

  make it difficult for him to find other football employment.

  In the battle to come, the other side (management) would say

  with some justification, among the freedoms the players sought

  was to do whatever they wanted to whomever they wanted and in

  any manner they wanted to do it. Ironically, the college draft sys-

  tem (the first infringement on any player’s rights) got no attention

  at all until a judge dropped it right in the players’ laps.

  In the matter of free agency, this is the way it was. Manage-

  ment kept a firm hold on the employee with something it called

  the modified reserve clause plan. Under it a player was then bound

  to his employers until trade or retirement did they part.

  At the conclusion of his contract he could (for a 10 percent pay

  cut) elect to play one year without a contract and then be free to

  sign with another team. Like hell he could.

  First, he had to find a team that would be willing to take on

  the burden of the league’s compensation clause— known collo-

  quially as the Rozelle Rule. The commissioner was empowered—

  indeed, mandated— to decide what should be taken away from the

  new employer and assigned to the old one to serve as balm for his

  monumental and unexpected loss.

  Its genesis could be found in 1967, just one year before Gordy’s

  liberty- or- death speech to the troops. A highly gifted wide receiver named Dave Parks became disenchanted with his employer— the

  San Francisco 49ers. He played out his option and signed a con-

  tract with the New Orleans Saints for the 1968 season.

  It was then, as they used to say in Asia, that the fit hit the chan.

  To understand the strict action Rozelle was about to take, you

  need to know the difference between the old baseball player con-

  tract that bound him to one club until death or trade did they part.

  Pro football never had that kind of hold on its players. Techni-

  cally, they could play out their contracts and become free agents,

  hoping someone would sign them.

  Power to the Tackles

  183

  For a very long time that’s the way it was. The player could resign with his team or go pump gas at a local filling station.

  But then other owners, one by one, suddenly felt, why not sign

  these guys if they could help? Who would stop them or set a price

  on their actions?

  Enter Pete Rozelle.

  Rozelle was determined to make a point, and he came down

  hard. He set up a method of compensation to be paid by owners

  who signed a player under those circumstances.

  At the time it was a reasonable strategy because to keep the house

  in order was part of the commissioner’s job. He set a high price for

  Parks. He reached into the Saints’ camp and grabbed a great pros-

  pect from Notre Dame named Kevin Hardy, who had been the

  Saints’ first draft choice, and sent him to San Francisco. He also

  gave the Niners the Saints’ number- one pick for the following year.

  “I simply tried to figure out,” Rozelle explained, “what the Nin-

  ers would have received had they traded Parks to New Orleans.”

  This was followed by loud screams from New Orleans and a

  standing ovation from the other nfl owners. Garvey would later

  say, “They [the owners] got the message. They will stick together

  and work together for as long as they can. They are going to pun-

  ish anybody who won’t do it their way.
The compensation rule

  has got to go.”

  When it was successfully challenged a few years later, compro-

  mise finally won the day. In 1974, with Mackey as the president

  and Ed Garvey as their counsel, the players struck just before the

  preseason games over what they called the “freedom issues.” It

  was doomed from the start. It was a disaster.

  To be honest about it, Rozelle’s only input was public relations.

  But it was the deciding factor. The nflpa had about as much chance

  to beat Rozelle at that specialty as a mouse crawling up an ele-

  phant’s leg with carnal intentions. The players worked out of the

  Squire Midtown Hotel in Manhattan where Mackey did his best

  to answer the media’s telephone inquiries. Press releases were writ-

  ten out of an all- night delicatessen down the block. The Rozelle

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  Power to the Tackles

  Rule remained in effect, a new general contract was signed, and a few fringe benefits were granted.

  As a strike it was a washout, but as a harbinger of the future, it

  was all things to all men. Rozelle knew they would be back with

  litigation to spare. But they had better bring enough provisions

  (read: money here) to last out a series of monumental sieges. The

  nfl attorneys planned to pile up four after hours of testimony,

  writs, and arguments. That cost money. As Napoleon warned,

  “God is on the side with the best artillery.” And Rozelle knew he

  had most of the guns.

  The failed strike proved that the union job was too complex and

  time- consuming to be handled by an active player. A new approach

  was needed. To Garvey’s credit he seized the opportunity. In 1971

  he was appointed the first executive director of the nflpa.

  Garvey was a quick, nervous kind of fellow. If the match were

  for the world’s personality championship, Rozelle would have won

  by tko on the way to the ring. An objective interviewer had to

  come to the opinion that he came across as a man motivated by

  style rather than compassionate conviction. As an orator he was as

  exciting as watching a tree form its annual ring. But as an oppo-

  nent, he was very much in the game.

  He was born in Burlington, Wisconsin, and went off to the Uni-

  versity of Wisconsin, where he fashioned a career in student politics.

  The National Students Association of which he was president was

  bursting at the seams from both the political left and the right. Later it would be accepted rumor that the Central Intelligence Agency’s