The National Football League, according to its own people, is looking to “clean up its act”.
League officials acknowledge the NFL — as popular as it is with fans and bettors every Sunday in the fall — has a lot of work to do to get rid of its image as a league with too many athletes who are greedy, selfish and too often in trouble with the law.
As this public relations initiative evolves to help the League smooth its rough edges, here comes a double dose of irony.
A large number of highly-respected former players, including Hall-of-Famers Mike Ditka, Bart Starr and Sam Huff have called on the League and the NFL Players Association to do more to help former players, many of whom are, by all accounts, in desperate need of financial assistance. The players from the 50’s and 60’s did not make “the big bucks”, and many have found the transition to life after pro sports very difficult. Quite a number have medical costs that they simply cannot cover.
Various reports persist in suggesting that the vast majority of today’s players have no interest in giving up any of the millions of dollars they earn annually to share with those who helped build the League before them.
Critics suggest the League and the Players Association should do more. Much more.
A lot of the criticism has been directed at long-time Players Association President Gene Upshaw, himself a Hall-of-Famer who earns more than a million dollars a year in salary.
In a recent ESPN.com story, Upshaw is quoted as telling the Philadelphia Daily news (in response to critical comments attributed to former Buffalo Bills guard Joe DeLamielleure) that, “A guy like DeLamielleure says the things he said about me, you think I'm going to invite him to dinner? No. I'm going to break his ... damn neck".
Many of DeLamielleure’s friends and fellow former players were quoted in the ESPN story as saying that the man they called Joe D should be concerned about the alleged “threat” from Upshaw. One former player is quoted as saying, “I don’t trust him (Upshaw) not to be violent.”
Here is a League, an institution, really, in the United States, working supposedly hard to clean up its image.
The guys who built the foundation upon which the League now stands are simply asking that some of the millions of dollars that today’s League and players are earning be shared equitably among former players in need.
When one of the leaders of the NFL “establishment” (Upshaw), doesn’t like the criticism they are receiving, they respond with the kind of public comment that makes even tough-guy ex-NFL types shudder.
In terms of the messages the League is communicating, it may be that the League itself, and its leaders, need to set the bar much higher in terms of its own attitude and behaviour, if it wants to set an example for its modern-day players to follow.
