Dave Pear's Blog

Reprinted in its entirety with permission from Evan Weiner:

Discarded NFL players are often forgotten in retirement

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In our last post, we covered another NFL benefit offer for retired players and we mentioned the popular myth that the NFL (and Gene Upshaw’s NFLPA by association at the time) perpetuated for decades was that most retired players had dramatically shortened lives and many of you would be dead by the time you were 55. A lot of the older players have confirmed that this was the general information being given to them over the years.

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Dave recently dug up a letter from former NFLPA PR flak, Frank Woschitz, sent out back in 1993 (!). Most of these documents speak for themselves but we’ve redlined some particularly interesting sections. (Click on thumbnails to enlarge for reading.)

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Dave,

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You were kind enough recently to send me contact information for the NFLPA and NFL for a severance pay question. I contacted both through e-mail and sent the following question:

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I would like some information regarding severance pay that I may or may not be due from the Arizona Cardinals. If you can provide me with some insight before I contact the club that would be a great help.

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Lionel,

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I know many of you remember how tough the ’82 season was: a 57-day strike, a shortened season and a brand new wage scale. One of the highlights of the ’82 through ’86 contract was supposed to be SEVERANCE PAY.

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Here is Gene Upshaw’s own statement at the time about Severance Pay as found in the Foreword Section of the ’82 contract: “For the first time in any sport, players will receive substantial SEVERANCE PAY when they leave the game, and our medical bill of rights is in place.”

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Aaron Hewitt: Dave at Home

Yesterday, I was reading a recent article on Bleacher Report titled Dear NFL: Eight Changes That Need to Be Made Now (click HERE to read their eight changes). It got me thinking again about the real changes that need to be made for retired players:

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Dear  NFL, NFLPA, NFL Retirement board,

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Typically, Mike Florio on ProFootballTalk (now owned by MSNBC Sports) tends to lean more anti-NFLPA in his posts. But today, when NFL mouthpiece Greg Aiello decided to knock the NFLPA for having their annual gathering in sunny Hawaii, Florio actually quipped back:

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“Still, the union’s trek to the islands has prompted a jab from NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, who made the following point via Twitter:  “Weather today in NY is atrocious . . . would rather be in Maui but can’t afford it.”

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“The union might respond to the dig by suggesting that Aiello ask former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue for a loan.  After all, Tagliabue made $3.3 million last year, despite retiring in 2006.”

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NFLPA Lawyers Door

It seems that the NFLPA was under the rule of lawyers for decades when departed Executive Director Gene Upshaw ran the place. We’ve covered many of the lawyers inside over the past couple of years. And current Executive Director DeMaurice Smith recently alluded to the conflict of interest posed by the Groom Law Group with regard to the players’ pension plans; they wrote the plan and they represented BOTH the NFLPA AND the NFL when it came to defending the plan. (Click HERE to see the Super Bowl announcement.)

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Then you have Jeffrey Kessler who fought against the retired players in the Parrish GLA lawsuit by representing the NFLPA (who’s SUPPOSED to be representing the retired players’ interests – got that?!) and then turns around to represent the Union in the recent American Needle antitrust case in the Supreme Court. You also have CAA superagent Tom Condon who makes the big bucks representing many of the active players in their contracts with the League while also supposedly looking after retired players’ interests by serving for years as one of the 3 NFLPA representatives on the Disability Committee (most applicants get turned down for full benefits). And last but not least, you have NFLPA General Counsel, Richard Berthelsen, who’s been there as long as the wallpaper advising Upshaw over the years.

Gene Berthelsen

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Moran vs. NFLPA and NFL Players Inc.

Does the NFLPA think the same way about you?

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Valerie Thomas

Former NFLPA Director of Human Resources Mary Moran is at WAR against the NFLPA and she is taking no prisoners. In August 2009 Moran filed a $4 million lawsuit that claimed sex discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination of her employment in violation of public policy because she participated in a DOL Office of Labor Fraud and Racketeering investigation of the NFLPA. Moran claimed that the actions of NFLPA management created serious and troubling ethical concerns for her. General Counsel Richard Berthelsen called Mary Moran “a necessary casualty.”

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In our last post – Valerie Thomas: Life Under Upshaw – former NFLPA Research Analyst and Paralegal Valerie Thomas discussed her years of abuse and violation of her employee’s rights under the heavy hand of departed Executive Director Gene Upshaw and his inner circle. Bob Grant had posted several questions to her in the comments section about the toll from her long battle with the NFLPA and how it has affected her and her family over the years. This is Part 2 of Valerie Thomas’ story.

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We hope your legal team is reading this blog, Mr. Smith. You owe Valerie Thomas big time!

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Bob’s Questions:

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Valerie Thomas

Dave,

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Thank you for your earlier comment and for allowing me to be an active participant on your blog.

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It’s hard to accept that a union whose efforts that you supported, including financially, would turn against you in your time of need: your  post-football career.

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I know first-hand what it feels like to be ignored and it is even more dehumanizing to have been ignored while looking in the faces of the perpetrators on a daily basis. For example, my basic needs and rights to have access to my job were denied. When I reported to work, I was locked out with no key to get in the front door and no key to access the elevator. Once on the elevator, I couldn’t get off on the floor where I worked. Instead, I could only get off on the floor below mine and had to walk up a public stairwell. During the mornings, when I had to do business on other floors I had to walk up and down the public stairwells. I could not use the elevator like everyone else, including interns and temporary employees. At lunchtime and upon my return from lunch, I had to go through the same routine with no access to my floor and walk up a public stairwell (two sets of 12 stairs = 24 steps each way). In the afternoons, if I had to do business on other floors, I had to walk up and down the public stairwells. NFLPA management and its legal representatives harassed, intimidated and retaliated against me; they dared me to protect my rights and when I did, they then cheated and stole my livelihood and my family’s legacy.

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We keep thinking about that old saying, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Or how about “Different day, same old $@&!”?

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We have several recent news stories that seem to revolve around the same theme: Most football players are consistently and systematically screwed from cradle-to-grave. There really isn’t a gentle way to talk about it. It becomes clearer by the day and if it doesn’t make your blood boil, we don’t know what will. When that recent CBS Sports story came out on Conrad Dobler’s blunt interview about Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees, the typical comments from uninformed fans made their way online about those old retired players whining again about their plight. If retired players truly want to advance their cause, one of our goals has to include the re-education of generations of fans who still have a misconception of retired football players living the high life after they leave the game. If we need to do it one fan at a time, so be it.

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The underlying theme that keeps surfacing in these recent stories simply reinforces something that we’ve been trying to point out to players and fans alike: EVERYONE involved in the football industry gets paid at every step of the way. Except the players themselves. Think of it this way: Do high school players get paid for playing? Nope? Do college players get paid? Nope. In fact, everyone else in college makes money from football except the players. The revenue from licensed merchandise is a megamillion dollar enterprise. Colleges get huge donations and public funding for those 50,000+ seat stadiums . They pay good coaches millions in salaries and bonuses (while most academic professors are lucky to pull down a low 6-figure salary). Heaven forbid that a college player receives a gift or money because he’ll probably get banned for life! And before you go on the usual rant we hear about “Oh but they get a college education on a scholarship” argument, the reality is that the majority of these guys wouldn’t be in college if they weren’t good at football (of course, there are always exceptions of players who actually went on to use what they learned in college). If they finally survive the injuries of college football and actually make it into the professional leagues, agents are right there with their hands in the players’ pockets to “help” them negotiate that contract with a professional team – for 3 – 5% of their contract, of course. Then most players retire with injuries from their generally short careers on the field, only to find that the disability fund that was supposed to be available to take care of them is virtually inaccessible but to a select few players because of a Byzantine – and some say illegal – (dis)qualification process set up to deny claims. Like we said: Almost everyone makes money from football.

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NOTE: See if your name is on the list at the end of this post!

Recently, some of the retired players received an announcement from the NFLPA’s offices about another very old settlement fund finally closing on Feb. 18, 2010. Dee Becker from the NFLPA sent out an announcement about this lawsuit that dates back to 1993 – Reggie White et al vs. NFL et al.

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The lawsuit was significant in that it came in the days before free agency and the 1993 CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement). Several players were negotiating to move to different teams when their respective owners intervened behind the scenes in an effort to keep them from negotiating with other team owners. Imagine something like that happening today: Brett Favre wants to leave the Green Bay Packers and his agent starts discussions with the Minnesota Vikings. So the owner of the Packers just picks up the phone and calls the owner of the Vikings to dissuade him from doing so. The Packers get to keep Favre’s contract and then make Favre a low-ball offer or simply kick him to the curb with no place to go. And that’s the antitrust game in a nutshell. Unrestricted Free Agency and the CBA have become an integral part of players’ contracts today as a result of battles like Reggie White’s lawsuit. Unfortunately, it also allowed former NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw to pervert the process by negotiating the CBA for the full benefit of the active players while completely neglecting – and stealing from – the retired players. It was all about the money. Of course, it also meant that Superagents like Tom Condon (who just happened to have been sitting on the Disability Board for years and long rumored to have been the real power behind Upshaw’s throne) would get increasingly bigger pieces of those ridiculously sky-high salaries and bonuses that they’ve been negotiating for untested new rookies coming in every year since.

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Dave Pear Oakland Raiders Superbowl XV - Former Teammate with Gene Upshaw

First of all: Bernie & Walt,

We’re sending out our check for $100 today!

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Retired players will continue to sally forward as we relentlessly seek justice!

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Since the new guy took over for Upshaw nearly a year ago, we’ve only seen two symbolic changes in our Union:

1. The NFLPA Dire Need Fund has been renamed, “The Gene Upshaw Dire Need Fund”;
2. The NFLPA has renamed their building address to “63 Upshaw Place.”

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The Parrish vs. Players Inc. lawsuit presented an interesting conundrum for the NFLPA under Gene Upshaw; here they were, being sued by their own membership for not paying them royalties due after years of revenues generated from video games and trading cards and other licensed items. Yet they couldn’t allow themselves to notify their retired members that they were part of a class action against… them?!! Keep in mind that this was Upshaw’s NFLPA. It didn’t take long for new Executive Director DeMaurice Smith to quickly void Berthelsen and Kessler’s tired old arguments for another appeal and move the process to the settlement that’s close to being distributed today.  Do we have to remind anyone that if Gene Upshaw was still around, retired players would still be looking at another 3 – 5 years of appeals with no end in sight? (Actually, it appears that Yes – We DO Have to Remind Some People.) And all this happened within the first few months of change in the front office.

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Let’s just say it one more time for the people at the back of the room: You know Gene Upshaw would have spent millions more of YOUR money fighting YOU over YOUR money for however long it took to beat you down.

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And yet some people are still trying to point out what Gene Upshaw’s NFLPA DIDN’T do… He’s gone! Elvis has left the building! Get over it.

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President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read “The Buck Stops Here.” I always liked him when I was a kid because he was a plain and simple, straight-forward guy who was willing to take full responsibility for solving problems.

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With Apologies to President Harry Truman

The NFL Owners should have signs on their desks that read The Buck STARTS Here because all of the monies generated by the Game start with them and flow through them. The advertisers pay them first and directly, as do the television industry and anyone else who uses the Game to promote their products and/or services.

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