Episode 8: Power to the Players

Washington Football Team President Jason Wright, former Raven and NFLPA President turned ESPN analyst Domonique Foxworth and sports scholars/activists Richard Lapchick and Jeremi Duru talk about players' fight for more power in the NFL and how the racial game has been changed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I was seven years old, I had so much
fun attending a summer day camp in suburban Philadelphia. My
mom worked near the camp, so she dropped me off
on her way to work, then picked me up in
the afternoon. The memory has become more vague as the
years go by, but I remember there was a swimming
pool and a lot of fun in laughter all day.

(00:20):
I begged my mom to send me back for the
entire summer, or for at least another two weeks, but
I don't think that was in the family budget. On
one of the last days of camp, the kid asked
me if I ever felt funny being there. Why, I asked,
because you're the only black kid here, he said. I

(00:41):
looked around the other fifteen or twenty kids. I honestly
hadn't noticed it before, but he was right. I was
the only black kid in the camp. But for those
two weeks, being the only black kid didn't matter. The
counselors never made me feel like an outsider. None of
the other kids at the camp. Every baby feel uncomfortable.

(01:04):
I think about the innocence I had looking at the
world as a child, as opposed to how I view
the world now. That childlike innocence can never be recaptured.
But I hold on to that summer camp memory, knowing
that our differences don't have to pull us apart, and
we can make someone who looks different feel good if

(01:24):
we make them feel included. Welcome to Black in the NFL.
I'm your host, Clifton Brown. Today's episode is Power to
the Players. My guests are American University law professor and
author and Jeremy Darue, former Ravens quarterback, NFLPA president and

(01:47):
current ESPN commentator, Dominique Foxworth, former NFL running back and
current president of the Washington Football team, Jason Wright, and
Richard Lapchick, one of the former social activists of the
last fifty years and a professor at the University of
Central Florida. There's long been a power struggle for all

(02:09):
NFL players, and most definitely black players, to get where
they are today. I've said many times before, but it
bears repeating. The NFL is comprised of seventy percent black players.
In this episode, we will discuss black players breaking the
color barrier, to their battle to form an NFL players union,

(02:30):
to their fight to achieve free agency, better salaries, and
safer working conditions. Then we'll move the conversation forward to today,
when more NFL athletes are using their platform to fight
for social justice. We'll talk about the country's racial awakening
since the murder of George Floyd and what this awakening
means for the NFL moving forward. Players seem to be

(02:54):
feeling more empowered, but how should they best use their
platform to create positive change not only in the NFL,
but in society. The journey for black players in the
NFL started in nineteen twenty when Fritz Pollard a Bobby
Marshall became the league's first two black players, but that

(03:15):
breakthrough didn't last. There were no black players in the
league again from nineteen thirty four to nineteen forty six.
Although there was no formal rule barring black players from
the NFL during that time, it was widely known that
Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall was the regul leader
of a quote gentleman's agreement among the owners not to

(03:39):
sign black players. Kenny Washington integrted the NFL again for
good in nineteen forty six when he signed with the
Los Angeles Rams. Pollard, Marshall, and Washington were trailblazers breaking
the color barrier, but when it came the players rights.
Another important black trailblazer was a late former Baltimore Quotes

(04:01):
tight end John Mackie. He fought to establish the National
Football League Players Association, the NFLPA, and he became to
union's first president in nineteen seventy. Here are some clips
from a video on the nflpa's website that details its history.
The voices in order of appearance are from Mackie, NFLPA

(04:25):
executive director de Marie Smith, a former offensive lineman, Max starts,
the National Football League does nothing without the players. That's
the only thing we got going for you is that
you're a player, and that if you don't go out
there and play on Sunday, the game will not go on.
Twenty six thirty five, one hundred olars cannot in the

(04:47):
same sixty thousand fans and the millions of people on
a Frinday afternoon. It's the players. You have a union
that basically started because players were tired of coming to
work where the team hadn't washed their clothes, didn't provide
them with what they believe were the basic necessities, and
going to the National Football League a lot of those

(05:09):
players in the fifties came into a professional league that
was worse off than their college teams. For our players
who stand up even to today, if you stand up
and fight the National Football League, their most diabolical and
easy way of getting back at you is to punish
the player you take John Mackey for example, five time
All Pro in nineteen seventy, he becomes the first president

(05:33):
of this union. In nineteen seventy one, he loses his job.
The pre free agent era, you stayed with one team
and that was it, and you were dictated, Hey, this
is your wage, this is what you're doing. If a
guy asked for his release, he was asking for a
release from the NFL. It wasn't from their team. Let's

(05:53):
welcome my first guest and Jeremy Dux and author of
the book Advancing the Ball Race, Reformation and the Quest
for Equal Coaching and Opportunity in the NFL. Daru says
today's players or a great depth to Mackee for setting
the groundwork for the league salary structure that is in
place today. Jeremy, I wanted to ask you, as far

(06:17):
as the history of the NFL and players rights, how
important do you think it was for someone like John Mackey,
who became the first NFL PA president to successfully establish
a union for NFL players, Oh well, I was critical.
I mean, when you think about the history of the

(06:38):
National Football League and important figures, if you're not telling
John Mackey among them, then you have to go back
to school. Because John Mackey was fundamental to making the
NFL what it is today. At his work with respect
to the union, basically modernize his relationship between players and

(07:00):
club such as the players had a legitimate and reasonable
stake in the ultimate operation. Without what Mackie did, some
of the others who who pushed the league towards free
agency and giving the players an opportunity to benefit from
the market's value, I'm not sure where the league would
be right as far as fagacy. I mean, we all

(07:21):
get excited every March when we see players going back
and forth, you know, joining new teams, signing new deals.
I think a lot of young fans don't realize that
there was a time where this wasn't even taking place.
How important was it for players to acquire NFL players.

(07:43):
The true meeting or the true event of NFL free
agency becoming a reality what did that mean for players
as far as salaries and as far as their their
potential to maximize their careers. You know, again it was
fun to metal. I mean, you know, talk about salaries first.
You know, anybody who understands, you know, market and economics,

(08:05):
understands that if you are restricted to one only one option,
then the money is going to be reflective. If you
have many options, then you get to drive your market price.
And so before free agency came into play, prices were very,
very very depreciated. In fact, many players you know in
the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies had other jobs in

(08:27):
the off season. Those who know the NFL today probably don't.
You can't imagine the world in which you have players
who are getting paid so little that they have to
have a job in the off season now with the
minimum salaries or six hundred thousand or so, But then
that wasn't the case. It's free agency that opened up
that opportunity. I should also point out that it also
opened up the possibility for mobility. Like the rest of

(08:50):
us and our professions, your professional cliff mine, if I
want to work in Miami or moved to LA I
can do that. You can do the same thing. But
players were restricted to the club that drafted them until
that club chose to trade them or release them. Otherwise
that's where they had to be. And Mackie and those
folks ushered than a new era given play as a

(09:11):
whole new set of rights. Now the NFL and it's
one hundred and first season and began with some black players,
But from nineteen thirty four to forty five, black players
were forbidden for participating in the NFL. How much is
that a reminder that even when progress is made regarding
raised there's no guarantee that progress will continue if we

(09:35):
aren't diligent. That is, that's exhibit A, and that's the
exhibit A reminder. You know, as you point out, you
add folks like Fritz Polar and others who were NFL
players in the league. There weren't a lot of them,
but they were there. And then by way of a
quote unquote gentleman's agreement among club owners, they were all

(09:55):
extrigated thirty four, as you point out, took a decade
plus for them to come back into the game. And
when they did come back into the game, Cliff, you
had them coming back only initially at the speed positions.
You didn't have them coming back at the quote unquote
thinking position quarterback, center, middle, linebacker. It took two decades

(10:16):
after they came after Blacks were left back in the
league of nineteen forty six until you had a starting
African American quarterback. Another two decades before you had a
black head coach. So it offers a perfect reminder that
no matter how far you move forward, there can always
be pullback, and quite frankly, I think we're seeing that
in broader society right now. Now. We saw some NFL

(10:38):
players this offseason make their old video to speak out
against social injustice. How much do you think that's a
reflection that NFL players are becoming more socially conscious. Oh,
absolutely absolutely, it definitely reflects that. But of course I
think that you know, it may be trying it. People

(11:00):
may think we talked about it too much. But the
stand that Colin Kaepernick took was an explosion in the
National Football League. Not everybody was ready to stand up
with him at that point, but it opened up a
door and people began to be more and more willing
to come out and express themselves strongly with respect to
their views on the state of society and the video

(11:22):
that you mentioned. I think it's notable that you had
Mahomes in there, Sean Watson. I mean the faces of
the league were willing to stand up and say, hey, listen,
racism exists. We have to battle it together in a
league where careers are short and injuries are many. What
concerns do you feel NFL players should have moving forward

(11:43):
regarding their rights. I think the biggest thing for NFL players,
if you asked them, would be to try to create
a more robust regime of guaranteed contracts. And some of
the most marquee guys can get guaranteed contracts, but that's
not the norm now. I think that the NFL average
career length is about three point two five years, So

(12:04):
we're talking about somebody who is done with their career
by the age of twenty five, which is extraordinary for us.
I'm not sure how old you are, a Cliff, but
I'm not twenty five. That's you know, That's that's pretty
early for you for your career to end. So you
should be able to maximize what you do what you

(12:25):
get during that period of time, and in that football
is such a physically rigorous game. I think guarantees should
be appropriate nesport as they are in sports that aren't
nearly as rigorous. As players become more socially conscious, what
suggestions would you give them as far as the best

(12:46):
way is to use the platform that they have, You
know what funny as you ask, I mean right now,
I'm not sure have any suggestions to give. I think
they're doing it. We have reached a point cliff where
the athlete activist is a real thing. The athlete activist
existed in the sixties with Bill Russell and Jim Brown
and John moved in those folks, and then for a

(13:06):
few decades we didn't see a whole lot of it.
But over the last ten years or so we've seen
a renewal of that ethos, and in my view, that's
an exciting thing. Verizon just turned on five G across
the country. The five G America has been waiting for

(13:29):
learn more at verising dot com slash five G. My
next guest is ESPN's Dominique Foxworth, who was president of
the NFLPA from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen. Foxworth brings
an inside his perspective on what it's like when players
go head to head at the bargaining table with owners.

(13:51):
He grew up in Maryland. A former star player at
Western Tech High in the University of Maryland. He also
spent his final three seasons with the Ravens from two
thousand and nine to two eleven, but his career was
cut short by a knee injury that forced him to
retire at age twenty eight. Foxworth enrolled at Harvard Business School,

(14:13):
and he pursued a career in business after graduating, but
he quickly tired of the long hours away from his family.
When he was presented with the opportunity to join ESPN
to give candid insights into the NFL, he couldn't pass
it up. Foxworth believed players sometimes must take controversial stances

(14:33):
to achieve what's best for themselves and other players moving forward.
Levian Bell held out for an entire season when he
was with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Deshaun Watson is reportedly
upset with the Houston Texans for not soliciting his opinion
when the team was searching for its next general manager.
Foxworth definitely understands where those players are coming from. Dominique,

(14:57):
let me ask you this, how much power do you
you think players of the NFL have now compared to
when you were playing. It depends. I think some individual
players are beginning to kind of test the limits and
realizing that they are more powerful than they had known
in the past, like we see very recently Deshaun Watson

(15:19):
maybe hitting around about forcing a trade kind of basketball
style flexing of his power. But I think true player
power comes from like the unity of all the players
to be able to stick together through a strike or
work stoppage or anything like that. And we've seen, unfortunately
the strikes that we've waged from a labor side of

(15:41):
it haven't ended with the results that we necessarily wanted
to have happened in those cases. But I think a
demonstration of that power is always I think imposing, and
it puts in the minds of the people you're negotiating
against what you're capable of. So that's what it comes
down to. I think it's in any case, it's not
just with players, but anywhere in life. And it's it's
probably more true now than or more obvious now than ever,

(16:03):
is words are words on a piece of paper, and
where the true power and influence comes from is from
collective action. So we see that for the good and
for the negative in our own society, which is larging
in sports, and sports is as we all know, as
a microcosm many times of what we see in society.

(16:24):
Then you mentioned to Sean and him we poorly being
unhappy and he wasn't consulted about him hiring a new
general manager. Do you think we may see more of
that in NFL moving forward or do you feel this
is just kind of maybe a unique situation. Yeah, I
mean I think that we will. There's unique things about
the culture of football, and it's it kind of fosters

(16:47):
militaristic mindset in some ways that is very command to control,
and people are committed to the hierarchies and are not
commonly like pushed back against them. So to see a
quarterback do this, because most of time quarter acts, they
kind of fall in line and they do what they
are supposed to. They're seen as an extension of management
in many cases, and Deshaun certainly isn't doing this. I

(17:08):
think the result of this will determine because that's what
happens with all this stuff. We saw Lebron kind of
being the first one on the basketball side to really
exhibit its power with that decision that kind of rubbed
so many people the wrong way, wrongfully, I'll add, but
it worked out just fine for Lebron and then you
see that people fallow suit. So I think this DeShawn

(17:29):
Watson situation could be one of those pivotal moments where
the player empowerment kind of era really crosses over into football.
Do you look at maybe Levon Bell and Melvin Gordon
perhaps being trail blazers in NFL watching away as in,
you know, their holdouts seem like they had some far
reaching effects. Yeah. I think it's tough though, because, like

(17:53):
I mentioned, it's about the results and the Leveon Bell
I personally comfortable with the way it turned out, and
it's not up up to me necessarily. But so many
people said that he lost money, but to me, it
seemed like what he did was secure more money over
a longer period of time. So that seemed like a
win for levy On Bell to me, obviously would have

(18:13):
been better had he played, not been injured then signed
the long term deal, but he ended up guaranteed himself
more money and getting a year of wear and tear
off his body. Which isn't a bad thing. And the
Melvin Gordon one, I don't think there's any way you
can look at that and consider that success. For Melvin Gordon.
He didn't get the long term contract and extension and
maybe he wasn't going to get it either way. So

(18:35):
we all know how running backs are treated. So I'm
not sure it feels like the way that the results
are interpreted and mattered. And it didn't seem like Levon Bell.
And it's not just about how much money they could
walk away with. It's about also how the public reacts
to them. I don't think we appreciate how much the
players care about that. I noticed that when I was
negotiating the collective bargain agreement back during the lockout in

(18:57):
twenty ten and twenty eleven. Is all the players. The
meetings are tough, man. They're all already for war and
that can withstand anything. And then that eleventh hour hits
and they're seeing tweets about how they're selfish and the
news media is calling them greedy, and their friends and

(19:17):
family may also be dependent on them, and that changes everything.
So the friends and family is one thing that I
certainly understand and respect and I guess I understand and
respect them. One to be celebrated, but when you're an athlete,
you're often criticized and celebrated. You don't really like the criticism.
And when it's for something as big as impacting a

(19:38):
team's fortune, I think that really weighs on the players
on the players quite a bit. Now we do most
NFL careers as short, but I think there's a false
perception among fans that a lot of players walk away
from the game in far better financial shape than they
actually are. Can you talk about why that perception is false? Yeah,

(20:00):
I mean we the players we get to know are
the players that are around for a long time. And
the guys who are around for a long time have
money and they've signed a couple of deals. The guys
that we don't get to know that are on team
for two years, one year, three years, four years, you
don't get to know those names. They move on from
team to team to team, and then they are unemployed.
And even I was pretty responsible, unmarried, no kids for

(20:22):
my first four years in the league, and I made
pretty good money as a third round pick. But that
was the first time when I started thinking about applying
to business school. Was in my fourth year when it
was looking like maybe I wasn't going to sign a
big deal because I was going to walk away at
about twenty six years old, twenty six years old with
no useful experience to go on some other career. And

(20:45):
granted I would have had I was responsible with my money,
I would have had a couple hundred thousand dollars in
the bank, which is nothing to sneeze at, but it's
not kind of life changing money that you can live
the rest of your life off of. And I don't
think honestly that it's it's commisserive value the amount of
time that you put in from the time that you're
young to the time that you get there for what

(21:05):
you're doing. So most of the players to go to
the NFL, they are out at that point or earlier
and have used most of their college time where other
people are amassing a network that will help them, amassing
some skills, amassing some experience. They've used all of that
time trying to get this big pay day. And they've
used all their NFF time trying to get this big

(21:27):
pay day. So their job is in coaching. Maybe is
where you have some experience of value. It's really hard elsewhere.
Now your rules NFLPA president, you mentioned you were in
chance negotiations with owners. Tell me some of the most
interesting things you learned about them. I don't know if

(21:48):
they're that interesting, but I might have been naive to
not know it before. But the first thing I learned
was they aren't that smart. And I don't mean that
as like a negative, like I'm not saying that they're dumb,
but I think prior to that experience and like, I
had a pretty normal upbringing, I wasn't like we were

(22:08):
like middle class and everyone like worked in our neighborhood
and all that stuff. And I thought about people who
had amassed billions of dollars or people who were CEOs
of big companies. I was like, Oh, those people must
be really smart, they must be super geniuses. They must
all be like Bill Gates. And even Bill Gates, who
is obviously very smart, had quite a few lucky breaks

(22:31):
that he'll speak to himself directly. But in those meetings,
I remember thinking like, Oh, these guys are like of
average intelligence. They they've gotten lucky, they've worked hard. Some
of them got the teams handed to them by their parents,
and some of them bought the teams because they made
some good decisions, but most of it, and not that

(22:52):
they're lazies, plenty of them worked hard. And it was
in the in those rooms that I first was like,
oh no, I'm not like out mad from a mental standpoint,
and I thought I would be. Honestly, I considered it.
I consider for them to be at the top of
their world, they must be as exceptional as we were
to be at the top of our world. And they

(23:16):
weren't they. I think it's quite clear that professional football
players are in the top percentile of athletes in the
world and in the country, but I don't think that
they the business people were in the top of like intellect.
So that was a surprise for me. M interesting. Now,
there's many players in NFL, you know, who are paid well,

(23:41):
obviously as you mentioned, because they have elite town or
actually all of them are. But how do you look
at the bounds of power between owners and players? Now,
I mean, it's I've written and talked about. It's a bunch.
It's is. It's incredible power asymmetry in their favor for

(24:02):
a couple of reasons, A couple structural reasons that you
can't really do much about, and one of them is
they own the teams, so they will own their careers
so to speak. Their earning period for the teams are
into perpetuity, and so the idea of missing out on
a full season in order to get one percentage point,

(24:25):
and they're fewer of them also, so one percentage point
split up amongst thirty two owners may mean I'm not
sure the numbers of the time a head, but let's
say it means a million dollars per franchise in an
organization or in a league that's growing. So next year
it'll be two million, a year after that'll be four million,
so compounding until you die and then you hand it

(24:48):
to your kids. So then you're like, all right, if
that's my equation, then okay, I can afford to sit
out an entire season because what this is going to
mean for me is hundreds of millions, if not billions
of dollars for me and my family. The equation is
different for players, because your career, on average, it's going
to be three years or two years, or even if

(25:08):
it's ten or fifteen years, you're going to give up
one year of your career, you can't get that year back.
And then you take into account that the one percent
is the same amount of money that will be going
to the owners split up amongst thirty two of them.
For you, it's going to the players split up amongst
twelve hundred of them. And then what ends up happening

(25:31):
is most of the games go to the big name
star players because they have the negotiating leverage. So even
if you're a guy who has a four year career
and you sit out for one year in order to
add one percentage point to the pot, the guy who's
going to get that money is the quarterback. You're not
going to be like, oh but I run down on
special teams, so fast, let me get this money. So

(25:54):
when you actually think about it like that, it's really like,
purely logically, there's no reason if I could hand my
cornerback position over to my son, then I'd like, all right,
well bleep it, I'll ride this out because it's gonna
be in my family forever. Or even if I knew
that my career was going to be forty years. And
that's like we see that in other unions like the

(26:16):
Autoworkers Union or steel workers union or healthcare teachers unions.
You understand that you're going to be doing this for
twenty thirty forty years. So I'm sorry there's a long
winded answer, but I think that points out how how
drastic the power asymmetry is and that you put on
top of it. These guys are incredibly powerful and respected

(26:37):
and influential, and none of the news networks want to
bother them because they all want to be able to
air their games to like that influence is all the
decisions that are being made and the pressure that we
talked about earlier. How the players don't like or react
well to fans coming down on them. Oh, that's what
happens when no one really knows the owner's names. First
of all, in all of the media channels are afraid

(26:59):
of the owners or want to at least maintain a
good relationship with them. The coverage reflects that. Now we
saw the Milwaukee Bucks flexing the muscle, you know, not
refuse to play a game after Jacob Blake was shot.
Could you see NFL players wielding that much power if
we have a situation like that moving forward, y one up,

(27:20):
I could see them doing that. I mean, it's unlikely.
The tough thing, I think, or the toughest thing, is
what would prompt it and would you be pushing for,
because that's what it feels like. It feels like when
you are going to like boycott or going strike or
something like whatever, you would consider this as a wildcatch strike.

(27:42):
It seems like what you would be doing is more
than just saying we're making a demonstration. Is we're making
a demand and you don't get football until we get X.
And that would be interesting to have players figure out that.
And it is a predominantly black league, but it's not

(28:03):
one black and I would imagine that now, I would imagine.
I know it's it's probably a little bit on right
leaning a sport politically, football than basketball. So it's unlikely,
but I could see it happening. If something happens just
before a game or just before the weekend, something major happens,
they all come together, like what are we going to do?

(28:24):
We need to do something now. Players in the past,
like the league John Mackie, first president of Players Union,
sacrifice a lot so that players of this error could
make the money that they do. How much should today's
players be willing to sacrifice for the future. That is
a tough question. I don't know how to answer that

(28:45):
because I don't know how to how to quantify how
much like I think they certainly should be willing to sacrifice.
I think that that is the power of the union,
because we laid out right there earlier, how the benefits
may not fall on you, probably won't like falling you.
And I've had many conversations with players that endure strikes
and I never had to do that, but I made

(29:07):
money that they never were able to make. So it's
a tough thing to do to both tell them the sacrifice.
But then we went over the economics of the situation,
and some of them can't afford to make that sacrifice,
or most of them aren't gonna get that money. They're
going to be out of the league. So to me,
it feels like the sacrifice should come from the management

(29:27):
side and the ownership side of this equation. But the
problem is the players have to sacrifice them in order
to force them to make that sacrifice that you're gonna
have to give up something because they're not going to
do it out of the kindness of their heart or
out of appreciation or respect. Varrisers just turned on five

(29:53):
G across the country. The five G America has been
waiting for learn more at Verrigers dot com Slash five G.
My next guest is Washington Football team president Jason Wright,
who became the first black NFL team president in league
history when he was hired in August. And undrafted running

(30:15):
back from Northwestern, Wright wasn't a star player during his
NFL career that lasted from two thousand and four through
two eleven, but teammates quickly recognized his outstanding leadership qualities.
He was the Arizona Cardinals player representative during his final
two NFL seasons. Following his career, he earned an NBA

(30:37):
from the University of Chicago and distinguished himself as a
top executive at McKenzie and Company, a global management and
consulting firm based in Washington, DC. Even though he's the
youngest team president in the NFL, Wright has seen the
NFL from all angles. He's been a player, he's fought

(30:57):
for players, and now he's on the management side, trying
to turn around a story franchise that was the last
of the NFL to integrate and dealt with other off
the field issues. Even in recent years, you were the
Arizona Cardinals player Rep. Jason during the twenty eleven lockouts.
So tell me what that experience was like and what

(31:20):
motivated you at that time to be an advocate for
players rights as a player. Yeah, well, I'll tell you this,
there was. It's one of the biggest honors of my
life to be voted by my teammates to represent them,
not just you know, in some nominal way, but on
the stuff that really mattered to them, like this, their families,

(31:41):
their finances, like you know, their future, and so for
your guys to trust you with that like that, that's
the ultimate affirmation, probably the best affirmation I've ever felt.
And so I carried that mindset into that. I took
it very seriously because I felt like I was carrying
the and of all these guys with me very livelihoods

(32:02):
in their future, not just for this generation of players,
but another set of them. And so you know, it
was very meaningful to me. But when I got in it,
I realized, Man, while I have some gifts and strengths
in this, you know, I can communicate well, and I care,
and you know, I can understand the concepts a little bit.
You know, I was ill equipped to really lead in

(32:24):
the way that I wanted to because I didn't understand business.
I didn't understand how capital flowed. I didn't understand how
money was made. I didn't understand profit and loss. And
some of the folks that were most effective, if I
think back the Jeff Saturdays, those folks who really got
our collective bargaining agreement done in that cycle, they understood
that stuff. And so for me as a player, as

(32:47):
a person of color, because I realized that, you know,
part of the deficit there was that black folks don't
tend to get the same sort of intellectual capital that
others get when it comes to understanding finances in business.
It really affirmed my need to go and get those
skills and get that knowledge. And so I wanted to
go to business school when I was done playing ball,

(33:07):
and that's how I got into business and landed where
I am today. So I'm grateful for It's a good
inflection point for me. Now I understand, your grandfather's a
school teacher and checks back in the forties, but lost
his job for still shaping with n WCP. You also
had another relative seriously involved in voting rights case in
Tuskee in the sixties. Now, how has that family background

(33:32):
or how did it shape your views do you think
on activism? Yeah, I think for me, the benefit of
coming from a family of civil rights activists or folks
that were very race conscious and took it as part
of our identity as a family was that I always
saw myself in the context of a bigger history. And
when you see yourself in the context of a bigger history,

(33:54):
it gives you the opportunity to have a little bit
of a deeper sense of purpose, to maybe be more
circumspect about opportunities that present themselves. You know, if I
think about where my folks have come from and what
they labored through, like, I'm willing to take on a
little pain, a little discomfort, I'm willing to compromise a
little bit in order to get to a place of

(34:15):
influence where I can advocate for other marginalized populations, not
just black folks, but women, LGBTQ, plus professionals, other folks.
Like all of those things, you know are just things
I think have always thought about because of the way
that my family raised me and the lineage I come from.
So I think it just helps in the starting point

(34:35):
of how I approach problems, I think otherwise it just
it tells me to like sort of stop whining anytime.
I think it's hard because my grandfather had to go
from being a school teacher to a farmer in an
instant just to help his family survive, you know. And

(34:56):
then a militia, a racial militia, try to take that
far from and by fours, yeah, get out the guns
and have a hat Field and McCoy type shootout just
to keep their landing, you know. And so you know,
I said here and be like, oh man, this job
is hard. It's so hard, Like, yeah, all right, right,
there's a there's another level that people that I have

(35:18):
lived on this earth with walk through that we're not
that far removed from. I can suck it up. Why
do you think that it took this long for a
black person to become a team president in a league
where almost seventy percent the players are black. Yeah, I
think there's a there's a few answers to that. You know.
My my glib one would be, you know, why are

(35:41):
there only four fortune one hundred black CEOs? It's the same.
The problem is the same. The problem is the same.
While I believe that talent is equally distributed across all
races and backgrounds and people of all types. Of opportunity
is clearly not. Oportunity is clearly not unless you don't

(36:01):
believe talent is equally distributed across all folks of all types.
But I think we all do. I think we would
all say that it is so, therefore opportunity is not
equitable across groups. Now, I think specifically the challenge for
the league, and I was very fortunate in this is
that for any professional, especially professional of color, role modeling

(36:24):
is important. Images are important, And for me, I was
really fortunate that you know, I had a there was
a black senior vice president with the Atlanta Falcons when
I was there. I had a black head coach in Cleveland,
Romeo Cornell, at a black general manager in Arizona, Rod Graves.

(36:46):
And so for me, even at a subconscious level, the
idea that black folks could lead outside of the hash marks,
and that there was a place for them in leading
a franchise or in leading an organization of this type
beyond what I was doing with my physical labor and

(37:06):
talent on the field, was already in my head, and
that opens you up to even just exploring those opportunities
and believing you belong. And that is an undervalued aspect
of anyone's career path. And so I think that's one aspect.
I think the NFL has taken on the other aspect
head on, and that's that opportunities are not just created

(37:28):
out of goodwill. They're created when you try to align incentives.
And they're doing some really creative things. You know, the
Rooney rule is one thing, and people crap on the
Rooney rule all day, but I'll tell you what, if
Corporate America use the Rooney rule, we'd all be in
better shape. All be in better shape. Corp America is
even closed to doing the Rooney rule, you know, So
you know, I gotta give the lead credit. And some
of the other things they're trying to do. They've tied

(37:50):
incentives for the organizations to produce minority talent. If a
black or brown coach from your team is taken by
another team, you get more draft picks like these. That's
very controversial. I know some people don't like it, but
I love what the NFL is trying to do to
be experimental around incentives, hard incentives that actually just get

(38:11):
us to the right place that we should have been
in all along. And of course we wanted to move
faster and do more. Yes, but I think we're on
the right path now. I'm told you talked to watch
you to order. Dan Snyder's wife telling you for more
than thirty hours before you decided to accept this job
is to am president. What did you hear that convince

(38:34):
you that this was a job for you? Yeah? I
heard two things that were really important. One was I
heard in honest, open, transparent, and vulnerable expression of their hearts.
You know, it's not often in an interview process where

(38:55):
you hear people say, I wish we would have done
this or this differently, here are the mistakes we made,
Here's how we grieve Where this and this and this
had been that sort of open and transparent conversation. People
willing to put their hearts out there like that. That
doesn't happen often, and certainly don't happen with people of
power and wealth like that, at least in my experience,

(39:17):
very often. So that immediately gave me the sense that
these are folks that I could be candid with, open
honest with, and that they were really committed to change.
You don't share that stuff unless you really committed. The
second thing was them really expressing and giving me the
demonstrated examples of that commitment to change. When you hire
a coach late Ron Rivera, you're committed to change because

(39:38):
he doesn't play he doesn't play games. He's a man
of integrity, expects to do his job professionally, expects you
to trust him and to hire someone like that and
to give him the ability to do what he needed
to do. Spoke volumes to me. Hiring the first woman
lead of media and broadcasting in the environment in which
the team was operating at that time is a bold

(39:59):
and important signal that's not insubstantial. And their commitment to
put the resources and things in place that we're needed
to do not only what we need to do on
organizational health and culture, but to make our business one
that drives equity in how it's done. You know, we
talked about how we wanted to approach a new a
potential new venue and in the DC Maryland, Virginia area,

(40:23):
and to do that with equity principles built in talking
about hundreds of millions of dollars going towards black owned,
brown owned women owned veteran own businesses and a commitment
to that from them. Right on the face of things
is it is really powerful. And so there's some shared
values and some openness that made me feel like this
is something we could do together. Now, there's been so

(40:45):
much talk about the franchise and name change. Why do
you think the name change of the Watching enfranchise is significant?
The name change is significant on multiple levels. Number One,
it represents ownership's bold decision to say, despite a rich
and important history, and this name is meaningful in a

(41:07):
positive way to many folks. Even though that's the case,
if we're going to have an organization that has the
values I want us to have and to be esteemed
in the marketplace that I wanted to be, I'm going
to have to make this move now. And I think
it's a burden they really took on. It's not easy
to do. It's not an easy decision to make. Irrespective
of how you or I feel about the connotation of

(41:30):
that name and how it is negatively impacted communities and
things like that, still a hard decision to make. And
so I think what it did more than anything was
signal that across the entire franchise business operations, football side,
things are going in a different direction. And it was

(41:50):
a promise that things would shift for the positive and
an ask for the fan base and others for trust
that it could get to a good spot. And I
think what has materialized, you know, since then, while it's
still a sore spot in many folks who have such
memories associated with the old name, there is a hope
and an optimism, mainly because of what coach have been

(42:12):
able to do on the field, that that move is
indicative of better things coming. And then it's on me
and those of us leading the rebrand process to make
sure we don't lose the great aspects of that history
under that old name and old Moniker and we pull
those forward into the new identity. It's a failure if
we feel like an expansion team on the other side

(42:33):
of this. So the task is on me, heavy task
on me and my team's shoulders to ensure we do that.
With the fan base. Now you're hiring Omosh, he was
met with a lot of you know, kudos, and you
know it was historic. I'm sure though you've probably heard
a couple of people either say out loud or get
to viewed it well. They've just hired just thirty year

(42:54):
old black man as a PR move. Yeah, of course.
What is your response to that trend of thought? Yeah,
I mean it's the same thing they said when I
was elected, you know, people said when I was elected
partner at a consultant. It's the same thing people said
when I got into a top five business school. We
used to hear in this. I don't really pay it

(43:14):
two minds, honestly, And you know, there's also the refrain
of like, well are you qualified all of that stuff?
And you know, you know, I had some snippy responses
to that, but honestly, at the end of the day, unfortunately,
that's the extra burden that you carry as a black
professional no matter where you are. And don't let you
be a black woman carry that doubly, right, You carry

(43:36):
that doubly, and it is what it is. One day
that won't be something that we have to fight through
and carry. But honestly, the bigger burden, the bigger pain,
is in that person who thinks that way, not on me.
What do you see as your vision? Don't I know
you guys want super Boy be here, but what is
your vision for what do you want to accomplish as

(43:59):
watching this team press it. You know. For me, I
want us to become a workplace that is widely recognized
as one of the best best places to work in sports.
A healthy organizational culture, a diverse leadership team that people
are flocking to and as a result, are producing, you know,

(44:19):
really innovative approaches across our business, our core business of
football itself, but the others that will build over time,
that to me, will be the marker of success. And
I think we've seen some early wins there, you know,
I said, We've got this new diverse leadership team and
new capabilities we brought in and even winning awards on
our social media team and in our content studio, getting

(44:40):
really good recognition for how they have taken a different
tone and approach to media. Very proud of that. You know.
We are operations team delivered best in the league on COVID,
you know. And so these are the things that our
new leaders and a refresh sense of energy in the
organization are accomplishing, and I think they're the first fruits
of we'll be able to do. But you know, I'm

(45:01):
gonna measure myself based on how well we perform as
a business as I should. I think, do you believe
that you, being the first black team president will open
up the doors for diversity in more front offices and
executive level around the league? I would think so. I mean,
time will tell, and the best thing I can do

(45:23):
is do a good job. It could do a good
job in this role, so nobody gets on the kick
of all last time we brought a brother in for
a role like this, right, So the best thing I
can do is, you know, bring the best of myself
a symbol the best team. Be innovative, be agile, be rigorous,
just do a damn good job, right and let everything
else sort of sort itself out. But you know, the

(45:46):
struggle with you know, the numbers game is that they're
only thirty two teams in the NFL. It's a lot
of small numbers things. So it's really hard to measure progress,
you know, on such a small scale, because you know,
one or two changes tip the scales in one direction
or the other in a big way. I think what
we can better focus on is if we think about

(46:09):
the talent pipeline across all levels and are we growing
the pie of even the candidates that are being considered
right when It used to be like, all right, Rooney rules,
go find the one and interview the one. Now when
we get to a space where we're saying, well, there
are seven really qualified candidates, it's going to be easy.

(46:30):
You know, it's easy for we now are looking specifically
for black talent, and we're cultivating it over years. Like
it's easy to interview through the Rooney rule because there's
seven people that would be amazing head coaches, or there's
six guys that would be fantastic general managers. There's three
guys that would be and gals that would be fantastic

(46:50):
team presidents. You know, I think that is where we
can measure a bit better and then continue to hold
ourselves accountable for how much of that pipe line converts
into the head roles. But you know, I'm encouraged by
the overall progress, and I like, as I said earlier,
I like some of the things that the League and
others are doing to try to get creative and incentivize

(47:13):
you know, decisions, and I would say better decisions, because frankly,
if talent is equally distributed and we don't see equivalent representation,
it literally means we don't have the best talent in
these roles, and so we will make better decisions if
we are seeing more diverse talent, and specifically with regard
to the League Black talent and leadership roles. So at

(47:36):
a time when it seems like there's so many people
I don't know, discouraged by what they're seeing in the
country in the workplace, you saying like you're pretty optimistic
about the future. And am I correct to saying it?
I chose I choose to be. What other choice is there?
I think? I think one of the one of the
positive aspects of being the son of civil rights activists

(48:01):
and grants of a civil rights activists is that I'm
cynic on race issues by nature, because I know the
roots of society. I know how these things are deeply systemic,
And actually it helps me to be more optimistic because
if I see our racial history in a proper context,
and I know the demons this nation has struggled with

(48:23):
historically and how they're still present in so many of
our systems, when I see a breakthrough, even a small one,
I get really damn excited because I know how hard
it is to see a breakthrough for talent of color
or for a business of color or whatever it is.
And so when I see these positive signs, I get
very optimistic because I think they are bigger markers of

(48:44):
success than we give them credit for. Because I have
a deep and fairly cynical view of the racial history
of our country. So because I esteem that so big,
I esteem small victories so well. Verizon just turned on

(49:06):
five G across the country. The five G America has
been waiting for learn more at verising dot com Slash
five G. My final guest is Richard Lapchick, who has
spent his entire adult life fighting against racism. In nineteen
eighty eight, Lapstick began the Racial and Gender Report Card,

(49:29):
a yearly analysis which examines the racial and gender makeup
of players, coaches, and staff in the NFL and other
American sports organizations. Laptic has been assaulted and threatened for
fighting against racism, but he has never quit. In twenty twenty,
he believes more NFL players reached the same conclusion he

(49:50):
reached years ago, that fighting racism isn't optional, but an obligation.
Can you talk about your introduction to racism as a
five year old and how a decision your father made
as head coached the Knicks played a part in that,
but Cliff literally my earliest memory as a five year

(50:11):
old was looking outside my bedroom window and Yonkers, New York,
where I was raised, and seeing my father's image swinging
from a tree with people under the tree picketing. And
for several years after that, I'd pick up the extension
phone in the house, my dad not knowing that I
was listening, and it was racial up at that after
racial up at that being hurled at him. As a five,
six and seven year old kid, I didn't know what

(50:32):
any of it meant, excepting knew a lot of people
hated my best friend. And later I would of course
find out that as the coach of the Knicks in
nineteen fifty, he signed the first black player in the
history of the NBA, that Sweetwater Cliff In a week
before the Celtics and the Nationals drafted Earl Lloyd and
Chuck Cooper, and they became the first three black players
in October of nineteen fifty a league this now eighty

(50:54):
percent black, but in nineteen fifty there were a lot
of people who weren't ready for that right. And also
you had another is that you've had many where you
were assaulted outside your office by hooded men. Well I
had as a teenager, wanted to be a ballplayer. My
dad was a double inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

(51:15):
He was the first great big man in the game.
Everybody assumed I would follow in his footsteps. I was
pretty tall in the eighth grade. I was one of
the tallest players in New York City and was heavily
recruited by high schools there. I chose not to go
to a school called Power Memorial, even though it was
the top basketball program in the country, because I wanted
a little more of an academic emphasis elsewhere. But I

(51:36):
became friends with the coach and he invited me to
his basketball camp the next summer. This is nineteen sixty one.
Cliff High school coaches didn't have basketball camps that now
everybody has them revenue generators, but in nineteen sixty one
this was different. So there were five of his white
players there from Power Memorial and a black player, and
one of the white players was just dropping the in

(51:56):
word I'm the black player for the first three days
and I finally challenged him. Cliff. At that point, the
kid knocked me out cold. That kid has been a
D one basketball coach for the last thirty five years,
and the black guy was named lu Al Cinder at
the time, and Kareem and I became lifelong friends, to
the point that his statue was unveiled at the Staples Center.

(52:18):
He asked me to speak at it. When he received
the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama at the
end of his administration, he invited me and Henry Lewis
Gates to be his two guests at the White House,
and he flew all the way to Orlando to be
with me when I was scheduled to have surgery a
number of years ago. But as a fifteen year old
boy cliff white boy from a largely white community, I
suddenly had a young urban African American lens to see

(52:40):
what racism was doing in his community and other communities
of color. Was really at that point that I decided
I was going to be involved in civil rights for
the rest of my life. I didn't know what that
meant at the time or what it would look like,
but I knew that's what I wanted to do. I
got a PhD and International race relations. It was the
first one in the country at the time, and I

(53:00):
did my doctoral dissertation on how South Africa used sport
as part of its foreign policy in the international response,
I'm compared with how the Nazis had done that in
the nineteen thirties. It became published as a book. I
started speaking about apartheid, founded the sports Boycott of South
Africa in nineteen seventy four in America. It was a
big movement in Europe and New Zealand, written in Australia,

(53:21):
which were the competitive allies in sport with South Africa,
but they were now boycotting South Africa. So I knew
they were going to come to the United States in
nineteen seventy eight. Was the first South African team coming
was a Davis Cup team playing in Nashville, Tennessee, and
I went down there as the head of the coalition
to try to get the matches canceled. The African governments,
which I was working closely in the anti apartheime struggle,

(53:45):
I had asked me to announce that they would boycott
in nineteen eighty four Olympic Games in Los Angeles if
this team was allowed to come in nineteen seventy eight,
so I announced that at Vanderbilt before I spoke to
the student body, and I did it in a press
conference format, and all three networks were there because of
the implications for the Olympics. And Dick chap who was
then a correspondent for NBC Night Whos, came up to

(54:06):
me after the press conference, but before I spoke to
the student body, and he said, the financial backers the
Davis Cup had pulled out looked like the mattress We're
going to be canceled. I announced that to the crowd.
They went crazy, and when I flew home to Virginia
that night, I thought, maybe, for the first time in
my life, I had really done something worthwhile. Next night,
I was working late in my college office to get

(54:26):
a long rounded way to your original question, and the
office was in the school's library. The library closed at
ten thirty. There was a knock on the door at
ten forty five. I assumed it was a campus security
so I didn't hesitate to open the door, but it
was two men wearing stocking masks who proceeded to cause
liver damage, kidney damage. I hearne a concussion, carved the
N word in my stomach with a pair of office scissors.

(54:48):
I knew laying in the hospital that Nightcliff, that if
people had gone to the length they did to try
to stop my dad twenty eight years before, and to
the length they did to try to stop me that night,
that they must have thought we were having an impact
on racism and fighting against racism using the sports platform,
that they didn't want to continue. So I decided in
that hospital but that night, that I was going to

(55:10):
spend the rest of my life using the sports platform
to address social justice issues, obviously emphasizing race, but other
social justice issues as well. And that's essentially what I've
done since nineteen seventy eight. During your years doing this
with the NFL, have you seen black players treated significantly

(55:30):
different leading white players. I'd just like you're talking about
that a little bit. Well, I think the big difference
here and now is act lead activism, whereas when athletes
were When con Kaepernet took the action that he did
in twenty sixteen, I think most of the public probably
opposed it. Players didn't exactly know what to do when
the next season was about to start. It was no

(55:52):
certainty at all the players were going to line up
and take a knee until Donald Trump went on the
air literally the night before the seasons the twenty seventeen
started and talked said what he said about owners should
fire these people, and they didn't paint it so politely.
That brought Roger Goodell even to say players can demonstrate,
and of course they did. And then the ultimate, the

(56:15):
ultimate athlete activism act of this moment, I think, was
when the Milwaukee Bucks decided that after the shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin,
that they weren't going to play in a playoff game,
that they were favored to win the entire NBA playoffs,
and the league and the players associations stood up with
them right after that. So now we see players, teams,
leagues acting, and players associations acting in unison. It's a

(56:38):
different era. So I think it's an important era. I
think we're going to see it at the college level,
with student athletes speaking out about how I mean we
talked about hiring practices is needing adjustments in the NFL
and other sports. College sport is the worst of all.
So student athletes are going to realize that they have power.
I think they realized that last year, but once they

(56:59):
directed and once pro athletes directed internally at their organization,
We're going to see even more changes. Do you think
today the at least have more power to have impact
and maybe even back in the day when Jim Brown
and John Maggie were doing what they were doing, do
you think today the athletes, because of social media and
other facts, may have even more power if they continue

(57:20):
to speak out that those guys did in the past.
We they have more power because the public is supporting
athlete activism. You know a Nielsen study that came out
of a a couple of months ago said that's seventy seven
percent of the American public supports athlete activism, supports the teams,
backing the athletes, and even asked there the people that
they buy product from to have a social conscience induce

(57:43):
things that are more progressive. This is a different public,
of course, and you have to counter that with the
fact that in this election, which thank god, Trump was defeated,
but seventy million people voted for Donald Trump. How are
what are they attitudes? We saw some example of it.
I don't think these are representative of seventy million people, obviously,

(58:05):
but what we saw in Washington put us on the
high alert that we have to stay vigilant always. You
have conversations with Commission of Goodall and I have had many.
I'm sure you'll continue to moving forward. What advice would
you give him, naf ANFL moving forward regarding diversity, I
would advise him keep listening to the players, hear their voices,

(58:28):
understand that they are, which I think he does now,
multidimensional human beings. And I think this is one of
the things about athlete activism that has finally captured the
spirit of players is you know, they used to be
asked that you think he'll be a recover from this
injury and be able to play on Sunday. I think
the team will win the conference championship, will be play
in the super Bowl. Now they're being asked about wealth

(58:51):
in America and the disparities and educational systems, and the
disparities and healthcare systems in the COVID crisis, you know,
the disproportion and act on black and brown communities from
the plague in this country. At the moment, it feels
good to be treated as a multidimensional human being. And
I think Roger Goodell in the League office is now
doing that and we're going to see more hopefully more

(59:14):
of a partnership in the future, and I would encourage
him to even expand that further. Deshoma Watson in Techs
who poorly is unhappy about not being included in the
process of Iron general manager. Do you think we want
to see more players of his caliber pushed to be
evolved into his conversations. I think players are going to

(59:36):
see their have seen what their powers, know that they
can have an impact and will continue to use it
in important circumstances like is happening right now as the
hiring cycle is now opening up in the NFL. Then
some people are calling this era the black quarterback with
a hose. Russell Wilsims m how important is that for

(59:56):
the NFL? Well, of course it's important because there was
such a history of black players not being able to
be quarterbacks because of stereotypes and racism. You know, this
is one obstacle that's been overcome. But the black quarterback
is the face of the team in the public's view,
and that to have a black face on representing the team,

(01:00:19):
I think is critically important to young kids growing up
to see what leadership really means, to see how they
can not only play a role on a field, but
in decisions that are affecting their everyday lives. Black quarterbacks

(01:00:40):
will be the focus of the next episode of Black
in the NFL, when I'll speak with Lamar Jackson of
the Ravens and other black NFL quarterbacks who are changing
the game. Here's a short preview of what Labar had
to say. Are we passed the point of what you
and Mahomes doing, Deshaun Russell Wilson, the negative stereotypes of

(01:01:01):
black quarterbacks or do you think there's still some of
that going on? Oh, it's gonna still be some of
that going on, you know, but it's dying down a lot,
you know, because um, each and every Sunday or whenever
any one of us play, you know, we were showing up.
Now we put on the show. You know, we're not
just there just playing football and just doing anything. We
out there winning games and I feel putting our team

(01:01:22):
in the best situations, you know. So I guess we
changed the narrative as we're going, just like the guys
before us did. I really hope you have been enjoying
this podcast. I want to ask you again to please
subscribe if you have it already, leave a rating and

(01:01:43):
review and spread the word to your friends and family.
A lot of the topics we've talked about recently, from diversity, hiring,
and off the field matters are in the news right now.
This is important stuff and I hope you'll give it
a listen and with others, thank you. Black in the

(01:02:04):
NFL is powered by Blue Wire. This show is produced
and edited by Noah Eberhard, An executive produced by Michelle Andres,
Ryan Mink, John Yales, and Peter Moses. Tune in to
the Ravens Podcast Network for two other podcasts, The Lounge

(01:02:24):
hosted by Garrett Downing and Ryan Mink and What Happened
to That Guy? Hosted by John Isenburg. Thanks so all
my guests, and join us for the next episode of
Black in the NFL. Until then, be blessed and thanks
for listening. The