Hard labor awaits NFL union boss
March 13
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Michael Hunt
"Generally speaking, there are two fairly ironclad, thou-shalt-not-disobey rules for sports.
The Buffalo Bills recently violated the first, which commands that no matter how much you need someone to catch footballs, sign Terrell Owens only at the risk of exhausting all the team's HMO mental-health allowances before the end of training camp.
The second is to never, ever self-apply a nickname. Recollection of the "He Hate Me" character is reason enough.
Except that a Wisconsin legend came close to breaching No. 2 almost 20 years ago. After practice one day, Troy Vincent asked a couple of newspaper guys to refer to him as "The Stealth" in their stories. While I may have thrown Vincent a bone, it's a good thing it didn't stick.
Vincent is one of four candidates up for election as executive director of the NFL players union Sunday in Maui. Allegations have surfaced that he leaked confidential union information to his business partner and secretly tried to overthrow Gene Upshaw, who headed the union for 25 years before his death last August.
Except for the possibility that this critical election has gotten down and dirty like a political backroom brawl, who knows the truth? With all that's at stake for the NFL's future, Vincent claims he is the victim of a smear campaign. If football players really want to go down the Lee Atwater/James Carville road, you'd suppose anything is possible.
Meanwhile, two words of advice for Mark Tauscher and his 31 fellow voters this weekend:
Don't fumble."
Link
Calendar
