Gene Upshaw, RIP

This weekend, I got word that former Oakland Raiders All-Star lineman and President of the NFL Players' Association Gene Upshaw passed away.

You all might be wondering why I'd want to blog about this; after all this is not a sports blog and I'm famously a TV hater and a Sports On TV hater.

Once upon a time I was not a TV hater or a sports on Tv hater. I grew up in a homw where one parent was a rabid sports fan. No matter the season, there was always some damned sport or another on TV. As such, it became inevitable that my brother and I would go out for sports. In high school the sport was football. I was an offensive and defensive lineman that year. Long tradition at my school had all the senior football players and more promising juniors sent to a week-long summer football camp right afte school let out for the summer. The camp featured local (as in "Bay Area") pro players as well as other NFL stars as coaches.

My biggest thrill at that otherwise depressing camp was that one of my coaches at was Gene Upshaw, a player I watched every Sunday because I knew how good he was as an offensive lineman.

After his playing days were over, he headed the Player's Association. He was instrumental in negotiating the agreement that gained pro football players the right of Free Agency so they could share in the media-generated wealth.