‘NFL Players Boss DeMaurice Smith, Eric Holder’s Pal, Major Bad Guy in National Concussion Saga’ (full text)

[originally published 8/12/11 at Beyond Chron, http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9425]

by Irvin Muchnick

And now for a heartwarming anecdote from last weekend’s Pro Football Hall of Fame festivities that you probably didn’t know: The executive director of the National Football League Players Association, DeMaurice Smith, crashed the dinner in Canton, Ohio, which is traditionally reserved for Hall of Famers and new inductees, and started to speak. According to NFL legend Joe DeLamielleure, blogging for Dave Pear’s Independent Football Veterans, around a dozen guys walked out in the middle of Smith’s remarks.

The NFLPA chief “had no idea that this audience consisted mostly of pre-1993 players,” said DeLamielleure, who estimated that the Hall of Famers in attendance included around 40 guys who receive monthly pension checks of exactly $176 from the $9-billion-a-year NFL. Confronted by the retirees, Smith said the “legacy fund” negotiated in the new collective bargaining agreement would increase them to between $1,000 and $1,500 a month.

But here’s the thing, football fans: A lot of NFL veterans, for good reason, don’t trust the NFLPA to negotiate on their behalf and honorably administer the new centimillion-dollar legacy fund.

After a group of the richiest-rich NFLers filed their antitrust lawsuit in Minnesota, Brady v. NFL, which helped end the lockout, Judge Susan Nelson of U.S. District Court allowed a class of disabled retiree plaintiffs to join the lawsuit. That contingent, led by Carl Eller, didn’t obstruct the consummation of the CBA and the resumption of the 2011 season. But the Eller class does demand a seat at the table as the devil in the details of the legacy fund gets hashed out. The upshot of Nelson’s rulings – she’ll probably wind up ordering the parties to mediation – is that they will likely get it.

Another set of facts with which few in the general public are familiar is the sickeningly corrupt history of the NFLPA under DeMaurice Smith’s predecessor, the late Gene Upshaw. (On September 8, Smith will be a speaker at the University of Santa Clara Law School’s Sports Law Symposium. Let’s hope he is forced to field the right tough questions.)

According to dissident retirees, the “union” not only abandoned their interests in a morally and financially sound pension and disability system, but also blatantly ripped off the athletic and celebrity personae of ex-players for royalties from the Madden video game and other licensed merchandise. These measures contributed to feathering a bloated and overpaid NFLPA bureaucracy, and enriched Upshaw in particular (along with “super agents” with NFLPA ties, such as Tom Condon) to the tune of impossible millions.

A new book, The Unbroken Line: The Untold Story of Gridiron Greats and Their Struggle to Save Professional Football – co-authored by former Dallas Cowboy Billy Joe DuPree and his lawyer, Spencer Kopf – traces the narrative to the end-game negotiations of the 1982 players’ strike. Today the key fault line in the fight to design equitable pension and disability plans is between active players (who tend to defer to their agents and the NFLPA) and those who retired before1993.

When he accepted the NFLPA post following Upshaw’s 2008 death from cancer, “D” Smith pledged “due diligence” of the organization’s controversial past practices. But dissidents say he has kept the Upshaw office team intact.

What makes all this even more intriguing and grotesque is that Smith is a former aide, and by some accounts best friend, of Attorney General Eric Holder. That gives fresh perspective to explanations for why President Obama, a hopeless March Madness addict, crusades on superficial fan issues, such as abolition of college football’s Bowl Championship Series, while saying nothing about the Big Sports public health issue of concussions.

I don’t think for a minute that Barack Obama is the problem in contemporary America. But I know he’s not the solution. There was a time in our country when we elected Presidents, but in the mauve days of late empire, the only thing we’re doing is appointing Jocksniffers in Chief.

Irvin Muchnick’s blog is “Concussion Inc.” (https://concussioninc.net).