Vikings remember Gene Upshaw

By Mike Schoemer | Friday, August 22, 2008 | ( 4 )

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Die-hard Minnesota Vikings fans remember Jan. 9, 1977, as a day in infamy. The beloved Purple People Eaters, in what would be their last Super Bowl together, were crushed by the silver and black of the Oakland Raiders, 32-14.

While Kenny Stabler, Fred Biletnikoff and Clarence Davis offered up many of the lasting images from the contest – the largest Super Bowl ever at its time – the unheralded group that truly allowed the Raiders to win Super Bowl XI was the offensive line.

And anchoring that line was one Eugene Upshaw.

Upshaw died this week at the young age of 63, a victim of pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed just four days prior to his death, leaving his passing a shock to everyone in the National Football League.

But Upshaw, a very public figure both on and off the field, probably wouldn’t have had it any other way. He liked things his way, and dying with his family by his bed would most likely have been one of those things.

Once Upshaw stepped away from his Hall of Fame career on the field, he became one of the game’s quintessential leaders off it. His leadership of the NFL Players Association was so exceptional that it led to lucrative deals with power brokers inside the game -- owners and management -- as well as outside forces such as football card companies and board/video games. As a result, players young and old (though the old have their issues with Upshaw) have benefited from his work as head of the players’ union.

It’s not a position that is going to make you friends, Upshaw said in the past. He knew that leading the union would estrange him from owners he knew as friends from his playing days, and would create rifts with former players he knew on the field as he implemented his policies.

Though criticism rained down, from the time he helped establish free agency in the league to recent discussions on how to benefit retirees from years when the NFL wasn’t making billions of dollars each year, Upshaw emerged unchanged.

He truly was a person who did not care what other people thought about him, current Viking Matt Birk said Thursday. Birk added that it didn’t mean Upshaw didn’t respect others’ opinions. It just meant that if his opinion drew criticism, he didn’t fear the negative comments that would sometimes follow suit.

That attitude turned off some players, said former Viking Robert Smith. In fact, Smith was a huge Upshaw detractor when he was a rookie.

“I was upset that the rookies in my first year were actually making less money than the rookies drafted the year before I came into the league,” Smith told KFAN’s Dan Barreiro on Thursday. Smith later found out the rookie salary was cut in his first season in order to kick more money into the NFL players’ pension program.

In the end, Smith said, he came to respect Upshaw and understand the players’ chief negotiator after working with him on other union matters.

“You always knew where he stood,” Smith said.

For more than two decades, the NFL has moved into a new era without a work stoppage. That’s something no other sport can say. And, in terms of popularity, it’s now the biggest sport in the country. Much of that success is thanks to Upshaw’s leadership off the field.

And, like the offensive line that was overlooked in Super Bowl XI, Upshaw didn’t mind missing out on some of the credit.

In the end he knew how it all came together. And he knew he played a big part in his team’s success.

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	About Mike Schoemer • Currently serving as managing editor of the award-winning Monticello Times after promotion in September of 2007. • Took the helm of the Edina, Minn., community newspaper, The Edina Sun Current in September 2006 in the heart of an election year. • Promoted to the Managing Editor of the...
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	No.1	06:18 PM 08/22/2008

	great guy and great person for the game sad story wonder whos going to take over.


	No.2 Raiderusmaximus	08:33 PM 08/23/2008

	May God remember him. He was a great player for the Oakland Raiders and what he did for the players Union was great. Its sad to...