Foxworth tired of Upshaw bashing

Sunday, February 24, 2008

By Bill Williamson
The Denver Post

Domonique Foxworth admits he isn't completely satisfied with the leadership of the NFL Players Association.

However, the Broncos defensive back is tired of hearing current and former players verbally attack the union's executive director, Gene Upshaw. In the past year, many people, most notably Mike Ditka and Kyle Turley, have taken Upshaw to task for his handling of retired and disabled players. Foxworth understands where the frustration is coming from, but he doesn't believe publicly bashing Upshaw is worthwhile.

"It's frustrating to me to keep reading this stuff," said Foxworth, who was the Broncos' assistant union rep last year and is poised to take over for Rod Smith, who likely will retire, this year.

"Why should all these guys air their dirty laundry? If they are unhappy they should join the cause and help make things better instead of just talking about it. . . . I've had my differences with Gene and the union but I have worked to solve them instead of going public. Instead of keep saying 'Gene stinks, Gene stinks, Gene stinks.' Do something about it."

Foxworth said he plans to stay active in the union for the rest of his career and aspires to someday be union president.

"That's how you make things better," Foxworth said. "I have nothing against guys like Ditka and Turley, but just talking about things doesn't do any of us any good."


Comment by Bruce Laird, posted to Denver Post in response to Domonique Foxworth's remarks:

* Retired NFL players With all due respect to Domonique Foxworth, many of those who are involved in retired players' efforts and/or who have been directly affected by the union's indifference, even hostility, toward retired players have, in fact, worked diligently within the system. For example, I've been involved in the National Football League PLayers' Association for decades, as a player rep with the Baltimore Colts and as an officer of the NFLPA's Baltimore chapter of retired players. Bernie Parrish was one of the founders of the NFLPA. And John Mackey was the first president of the NFLPA following the merger of the NFL and AFL. Mackey filed suit against the NFL to gain free agency for active players, thus setting in motion events that have resulted in the lucrative contracts and benefits afforded modern players.

Yet Mackey, who was diagnosed at age 59 with frontotemporal dementia, received no assistance from the union when he could no longer work and required full-time care. When my teammates and I saw what was happening to Mackey, we had to act. We organized a fundraiser that raised more than $25,000 to immediately assist the Mackey family in caring for John and we lobbied the NFLPA to take steps to assist Mackey and other players who suffer from football-related ailments.

Our efforts -- coupled with an appeal by John Mackey's wife Sylvia to then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue -- resulted in the 88 Plan to assist those affected with dementia and Alzheimer's. And our efforts grew to become Fourth & Goal, a national 501(c)(3) organization that advocates for improved pension and disability benefits and representation for retired players.

I'd welcome a dialog with Mr. Foxworth. I can be reached at baltimorecoltsalumni@msn.com or fourth.and.goal@hotmail.com. For additional information on Fourth & Goal, go to www.fourthandgoalunites.com.

Bruce Laird
President, Fourth & Goal
Baltimore Colts, 1972-1981
San Diego Chargers, 1982-1983
Bruce Laird
Joined: Sep 24
Points: 211 Posted by Bruce Laird (aka BadBoy40)
at 6:58 AM on Sunday Feb 24 Report Abuse | Report Good Comment

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Playing football for the love of the game

Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008

Ex-NFL player with Glenarden roots talks with youth looking to score big
by Natalie McGill | Staff Writer
Montgomery County, Md., Gazette

Throwing a football well before the existence of multi-million dollar team signings, commercial endorsements for footwear and even the Super Bowl, ex-NFL player John Cash was in it for the love of the game. And on Friday, Cash, who works part-time at the Glenarden Community Center, shared that love and his professional sports experiences with youth.

Cash’s visit was one of several planned for the joint ‘‘Do You Have What It Takes?” program at the Glenarden and Glenn Dale community centers that brings out African-American athletes from Prince George’s County to talk to youth about the sacrifices to becoming a professional athlete.

Glenarden Community Center Director Michael Kurland and Glenn Dale Community Center’s assistant director Tammy Massey began the program last year in conjunction with Black History Month. Out of the 11 young men who attended Friday’s program, seven raised their hands when asked if they wanted to play sports professionally.

‘‘We thought kids needed a little more direction as far as looking up to someone who has been there and done that instead of trying to do it on their own,” Kurland said.

Cash, 73, who played football at Allen University in Columbia, S.C., signed with the Cleveland Browns in 1960 and played for a year before signing with the Denver Broncos. He experienced highs and lows as an African-American NFL player, from flying first class to games, to not being allowed to stay in the same hotel with his white teammates on a visit to Los Angeles.

Cash played with the Broncos until 1964 when he found out he had calcium deposits in his ankle and was urged by his doctor to stop playing football. Following the NFL, Cash played with the Roanoke Buckskins, a ‘‘farm team” for the Washington Redskins to pick new recruits, from 1965 to 1970.

‘‘Had I played one more year I would’ve gotten pension,” Cash said. ‘‘But as I said, I’m blessed. If I had a chance to do it all over again I would do it.”

After playing with the Buckskins, Cash, his wife, Gloria Cash, and their two sons, John Cash Jr. and Bruce Cash, moved from Washington, D.C., to a single-family home on Brightseat Road in Glenarden, where they lived for 33 years. While working for the United States Postal Service in Bethesda, Cash started part time at the Glenarden Community Center in 1972, where he has remained ever since and now answers the center’s phones. Cash now lives in Woodmore near Mitchellville.

During his time at Glenarden Community Center, Cash coached the center’s basketball team and led them to 12 community center championships. He also coached the Glenarden Boys and Girls Club’s football team and continues to give the club copies of plays he used to run when he was coach.

‘‘It’s really cool having an ex-NFL star at our facility,” Kurland said. ‘‘It kind of brings some prestige to Glenarden.”

Cash brought in his old football, black cleats and football helmet, a brown paint-chipped helmet with a metal face guard and sparse padding around the cheek bone area. Massey wanted youth to see what equipment players like Cash had to use compared to the heavily padded gear today’s NFL players wear. Cash also brought in 50 cent game programs from his days with the Browns and Broncos and records of his contracts listing his starting salary.

Jairus Harper, 15, of Lanham said he was surprised at how little money Cash made after he told his peers he made $6,000 a year as his starting salary.

‘‘I learned a lot from him and things were a lot different back then,” Harper said.

Massey said the program gives those children and teens who aspire to play in the NBA or NFL a reality check about what hard work is necessary to go pro but she also wants them to know that it is possible if they work hard.

‘‘I wanted them to see the history of what they’re trying to get into,” Massey said. ‘‘I want them to understand it took men like Mr. Cash to pave the way.”

Cash said his advice to youth desiring a career in professional sports is to not only practice their craft but get an education first, adding he would not have attended school if he was unable to get a football scholarship to Allen University that paid him $20 a month.

‘‘Manners will take you where money won’t,” Cash said. ‘‘You have to humble yourself. Apply yourself.”

Lawrence Stokes, 14, of Greenbelt said Cash’s speech made him realize education comes before anything, but he would still like to play for the NBA in the future and has no particular preference of where he ends up.

‘‘Whatever team picks me,” Stokes said. ‘‘It doesn’t matter.”

E-mail Natalie McGill at nmcgill@gazette.net.

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Wives of handicapped and fallen NFL Alumni fight the good fight

OLD SCHOOL
February 23, 2008
These are their stories as told by SportsBusiness Journal's John Genzale
By Bruce Laird
(laird@profootball24x7.com )

Foreward by Tony Lombardi

Recently I was asked by former Baltimore Colts Pro Bowl Safety Bruce Laird to reprint with permission these compelling stories as told by SportsBusiness Journal's Founding Editor John Genzale. They are the stories of wives of afflicted former NFL players -- what they've endured and what they've been left to deal with while struggling with their husbands' handicap or worse, their death.

Their trials and tribulations both individually and collectively represent the bitter aftermath of living the dream of competing in the NFL. The broken bodies of their loved ones are mere collateral damage of the league's ascension to glory. Tragically these families and others like them are left nearly incapable of supporting themselves or sustaining even a modest lifestyle. In many ways they've been abandoned by the league, a league that they helped to build -- one with a gaudy amount of wealth yet seemingly bankrupt of compassion.

Hopefully things will change but clearly not soon enough for Mrs. Mackey, Heywood and Shy. Here are their stories...


By John Genzale
Founding Editor
SportsBusiness Journal

Sylvia’s Mackey story:

Sylvia Mackey raised hell about football-related dementia on CNN and ESPN after her husband, Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey, started to lose his God-given faculties. He became forgetful, often angry and had started causing public scenes. “He wasn’t the John I knew and loved for so many years.”

The Mackey case has been well documented not only on television but in countless print articles.

Sylvia, an articulate actress, model and flight attendant, a member of United Airlines’ flight-attendant union and a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild for 34 years, expected the league or the union to help. “John still pays his union dues every year.” But the union was largely unresponsive and help was slow until other former players came to the aid of the Mackeys by putting pressure on the union.

“It wasn’t only my husband,” she said. “There were lots of guys with some form of dementia from football, all facing medical catastrophe. Finances, even lives were going down the drain.”

Sylvia confronted Paul Tagliabue before he retired. It’s an over-simplification to say that the problem was instantly recognized and solved, but according to Syliva, “that got the ball rolling.” Tagliabue passed along his concerns to Roger Goodell and early in 2007, Plan 88, the number John wore when playing for the Baltimore Colts, was approved by the league and written into the labor agreement with the NFLPA.

It provides for $50,000 a year for in-home care including five-day a week nursing care. That’s what the Mackey’s receive now. “It’s a wonderful benefit. When John has to go to a nursing home, sometime in the future, the plan will pay up to $88,000 of that care.”

Syliva said, “He has a nurse now. We keep John active. We’re getting ready to go out to dinner right now with our daughter [Laura Mackey]. The love of a family really helps.”

Sylvia Mackey regrets that it took so long to get people to act. But she’s philosophical. “Whenever people have to give up money, they’re going to be real slow.”

She said credits the two commissioners but said the NFLPA was “unresponsive until John former teammates got involved.

“Bruce Laird and his Fourth and Goal organization went to bat for us with the union. Bruce was wonderful. He fought our battle and got other retired players to act on John’s behalf. Still took the union six months to call.”

But she doesn’t want place blame. “I’m concerned because I know there are more people out there who need help. Progress needs to be made. There are lots of battles and they won’t all be won at once.

“But I don’t blame anyone. I don’t bash anyone. I have a good relationship with Gene [Upshaw] and I love what Bruce Laird did for us.”

Suzie Heywood’s story

Suzie Heywood, an NFL widow, lost her ranch and then her husband. She’s “living on a small income, but when that runs out, it’s just gone.” Here’s her story:

“I started to realize there was something wrong with Ralph in 2004. My husband was always strong. He was a Marine Colonel, the only NFL player to fight in three wars, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

“He was playing football for USC and enlisted right after Pearl Harbor. He was just that kind of guy. He fought for his country.

He played in the NFL for four years after the war. He was one of the highest paid linemen. He made $6,000 a year.

He got hit a lot. When you’re young you’re invincible. It doesn’t matter if you get hit on the head. You’re a gladiator. Ralph had a bunch of concussions. I don’t know how many and Ralph couldn’t remember. In those days the equipment wasn’t very good. But guys back then played through the concussions. They had to. There was always someone younger and cheaper.

My husband was a warrior. He paid his dues. He didn’t make a lot of money. He had a football pension, but that wasn’t much. We got by mostly on his service pension.

We had a ranch in Texas. Ralph was a real cowboy, strong and handsome … an American hero. But in 2004 I started to notice that he became forgetful, got frustrated when he couldn’t handle little things. That was just not Ralph.

His dementia didn’t take a true course. Sometime he was just fine. I have a master’s degree in education and I know people. And I understand football. I’m the biggest fan you ever saw.

It started with depression, and then Ralph just quit living life. He became withdrawn, confused. It just wasn’t Ralph.

We saw a doctor and Ralph was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and needed help. As the medical bills started piling up, we started looking for help. At one time we were excited by Plan 88; we felt for a time that someone was coming to the rescue. But we were told it doesn’t apply to us. [More likely, it hadn’t been fully established in 2006 when Suzie made her calls.]

Then we heard there was other help related to the death of Pat Tillman. But nobody told us how to get help. I called the NFL and the Players Association. But there was no information forthcoming from the union. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t return my calls. When I did corner someone, the fellow in charge of retired players, they said there was no help for me. When you need them you’re a has-been and no one’s going to help.

“I swore that we weren’t going to go broke. That just wasn’t going to happen to us. But it did. We had to shut down the ranch. I moved Ralph into one of our horse trailers to cut down on the bills. Then I sold the ranch and our possessions … I sold everything so that I could afford the care my husband needed.

“Nobody would help us and Ralph just faded away.

“Ralph died in April of 2007 of complications from Alzheimer’s.

“After he died I got letter from the union hitting us up for union dues. Can you believe that? Ralph paid $100 a year. I wrote back and asked for burial funds. I’d pay the $100 dollars. But they told me a wife can’t be a member, and that I should have asked sooner for burial funds. They couldn’t help me because I didn’t apply in time.

“I blame the union. I know that they knew about him. I had called and written so many times.

“My least favorite person in the world is Gene Upshaw and $7 million salary. They take money and give no representation to the old guys. How can Gene Upshaw sleep at night?

“Bruce Laird helped pay for my husband's burial. I think he took it out of his own pocket.

Bruce is fabulous and his group [Fourth and Goal] is fantastic. I was alone sobbing and crying by myself and the next thing I knew they were helping to bury him.”

[Crying unrepentantly, Suzie said] “My husband helped create change. He helped build the NFL. The damned NFL made their money off the back of those old guys. Ralph stood up for black players. He was a gentleman. And he died with dignity.”

“It’s too late for me, but there are others. The things that have happened to us don’t have to happen to others. The union can make it better. There are plenty of other who need help. This is a proud group of men. They are not asking for handouts. They’re trying to take care of their families. And many of these guys are dying."

Syndi Shy’s story

Syndi Shy is the widow of Don Shy, a seven-year NFL veteran, who died of brain tumors at 61 in October 2006. Here’s Syndi’s story:

“Don was a wonderful, wonderful African-American man.

“We had a restaurant in San Diego called Papa Shy’s BBQ. When Don became ill, we had to sell and move back to Ohio. Don was so sick. Both his parents had Alzheimer’s and Don had football-related dementia. I watched him dwindle to nothing.

We went to the union. I wrote and called and asked for help. But the PA wouldn’t help. They said we didn’t sign the right insurance forms. No one cared about us. No one helped us. Not the Chicago Bears. They were rude and turned their backs on us. Not the NFL or the union. They said there’s nothing they could do.

“I blame them both. They treated us like crap, but I can’t understand the union not supporting their players and their wives. I was an American Airlines flight attendant for 30 years and the head of the union form 1994 to 98. I was fired after we went on strike.

“Those bastards at the PA wouldn’t help. How can they be in business with management? That’s not a union. Gene Upshaw is not a union man.

“They didn’t tell me about Plan 88. They only said they wanted Don to come to New York to sign forms. But he was too sick.

On the day he died, he said he wanted to go upstairs to rest, but he fell on the floor. My son Brandon and I got him in bed and he said, ‘The NFL killed me.’

“I couldn’t pay for his funeral. The union said they wouldn’t pay because I didn’t ask on time ‘so we’re not paying the bill.’ Can you believe that?

We had used up all our money on Don’s medical bills and were behind on the mortgage. After Don died, Brandon and I didn’t have money. We were forced out on the street. We lived in a 1982 Plymouth Voyager from November through February. Then Mike Ditka heard about our story. Bryant Gumbel had done a story. Mike called Bruce Laird and between them they paid my house payment for two months. They are my guardian angels. They paid my car bill and my utilities.

“Bruce put pressure of the union and shamed them. When Gene called he asked, ’Why did you call Bruce Laird?’ I told him because Fourth & Goal were the only ones who would help us.

Then Gene paid for the next four months rent. He said ‘We don’t usually do this for wives, but let’s do it.’ If not for Bruce, I’d still be on the streets.

Now were back on our feet. I have a catering little business. I do corporate stuff and I plan weddings. Brandon [22] opened a restaurant two weeks ago called ‘Eat my Ribs.’ He says his father is looking down on us and taking care of us.

“We’re a real success story. But this is about my son. He doesn’t even know that I have ovarian cancer. [Crying loudly.] It’s important for me to know that my son is OK. I don’t know if I have six months to live … I just want my son taken care of. I miss Don so much.”

http://www.ravens24x7.com/column_view.php?cid=47&id=2258&view=archive

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Helping former players not among union’s top priorities

Sports Business Journal
Opinion
Published February 04, 2008

The NFL Players Association has a better relationship with NFL management than with its former players.

That’s not merely a fact, it’s an indictment.

And if it isn’t universally true, it’s true in enough cases, in enough broken lives and tears, to explain why some former players, the guys who built the multibillion-dollar league, formed another union of sorts just to deal with the NFLPA.

Let me lay my cards on the table. I’ve never respected the NFLPA because in a world of greed, it is a worthy competitor. I still hold to the forgotten values that a union should represent the laborers who provide the means of production. But the NFLPA is not an organization solely dedicated to representing the interests of its working men, but rather another commercially driven institution that uses the sweat of its labor force to make money. I have nothing against making money; I just believe that unions shouldn’t do it.

Leigh Steinberg once told me, when I questioned the multimillion-dollar marketing deals that Players Inc., the union’s marketing arm, has with management, that I was a dinosaur. He said the new standard for labor is one of cooperation and business partnership that produces revenue for both sides.

There’s no doubt that I’m a dinosaur. I cling to the belief that the natural conflict between management and labor produces, through strife, debate and compromise, a working relationship that provides for both sides.

When labor is in bed with management, someone gets screwed.

The last time I wrote about this, I characterized the dues-paying members as the victims, those guys clinging to jobs in a profession where serious injury is a prevalent occupational hazard, where career expectancy is less than two years, where guaranteed contracts are nonexistent and where everyone is expendable. It’s exactly the kind of profession that needs a strong union. How can a grievance by an expendable be contended when the union is in the back rooms doing deals with management?

It’s not that I went looking for another opportunity to kick the unholy alliance that produces favorable fixed labor costs for management and sweet salaries for labor bosses. I’ve said my piece and if the players are too powerless to get fair treatment, there’s consolation in knowing that they are well-paid during their short careers.

So I haven’t crusaded against the NFLPA’s adoration of management’s money-making machinery. I even ignored Sylvia Mackey’s struggles for her husband, John, a Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end whose dementia can be traced directly to the head injuries he sustained while playing for the Baltimore Colts. It was a well-publicized example that exposes the indifference of management and labor toward its retired players.

As the season progressed toward its climax and the league prepared to celebrate another Super Bowl, I came across an organization whose goals have little connection to the gaudy display of wealth and celebrity. Bruce Laird put together a group of retired players under the banner of Fourth & Goal to fight for the guys who built the league.

“We had to form a union just to deal with the union,” Laird said.

It was his introduction to the struggles of retired players and to two NFL widows, who faced destitution with dignity, that compelled me to take up the issue.
The NFL’s Plan 88, named for John Mackey’s
Colts number, provides treatment for former
players.

Sylvia Mackey’s anger was assuaged with the NFL’s Plan 88 (her husband’s number), which was written into the labor agreement. It provides treatment for former players suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia. “I think they are slow taking care of players, but that’s to be expected. I have no more bitterness.”

But anger is not as easily set aside by Suzie Heywood, whose Marine colonel husband Ralph was the only NFL player to fight in three wars. He died last April. Through tears, she told me how his dementia-related medical bills forced her to sell their Texas ranch. “I moved Ralph into one of our horse trailers to cut down on the bills. I sold everything so that I could afford the care my husband needed. Nobody would help us and Ralph just faded away.”

Syndi and Don Shy lost their San Diego restaurant as dementia-related medical bills piled up. They moved back to Ohio where Don died in October 2006. She and son Brandon were left penniless. “We were on the street.” They lived through the Ohio winter in their 1982 Plymouth Voyager.

Both women remember in detail how their pleas to the league and the union went unanswered. Their bitterness is as overwhelming as their tears are moving and focuses more on the union because they expected help.

“How can they be in business with management?” said Syndi, a former union member. “That’s not a union.”

Suzie said, “My least favorite person in the world is Gene Upshaw and his $7 million salary.”

As if to illustrate their frustration, Upshaw, the union’s executive director, refused to answer questions. NFLPA spokesman Carl Francis wrote: “Gene is currently not addressing retired players’ issues. … This issue has received so much negative press that even the writers we do accommodate write the story with a negative slant. This issue is very complex and difficult to explain through an article.”

Perhaps it’s too difficult to defend because the union is obviously more concerned with its marketing dollars than with its retired players. It’s a disgrace. When guys with compassion, like Laird and other retired players, were coming to the aid of Sylvia, Suzie and Syndi, the NFLPA was planning its Super Bowl parties to celebrate with its business partners.

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