Gene Upshaw

Executive Director

• Born: August 15, 1945
• Birthplace: Robstown, Texas
• Died: August 20, 2008
• Place of death: Lake Tahoe, California

Sport: Football

Early Life

Eugene Thurman Upshaw, Jr., was born in the small Texas town of Robstown on August 15, 1945. His father, Eugene Upshaw, Sr., worked in the oil fields near Robstown and instructed his two boys, Gene and Marvin, in discipline, charity, and racial tolerance. Cora Upshaw, Gene’s mother, worked as a maid for white families. The family was poor, and the two boys worked picking cotton for $1.25 per 100 pounds.

When Gene and his brother were not in the fields, they spent their days in the four-room schoolhouse in Robstown. During recess and after school they played baseball. They were good players, but their strict father continually warned them not to sacrifice their education for sports.

The Road to Excellence

Gene and his brother stayed in school and applied themselves to their studies. Gene’s younger brother, Marvin, grew large and strong enough to star on the high school football team, but Gene remained small for his age. At football games he stood on the sidelines holding the first-down chains. Marvin later had a solid career as a defensive lineman in the NFL. Few would have predicted a similar future for Gene, but his prospects soon changed.

By his senior year in high school, Gene had developed into a fine athlete. At 5 feet 10 inches and 185 pounds, he became a genuine professional prospect as a baseball pitcher, but football became his sport of choice when he enrolled at Texas A&I College. At A&I, Gene added seven inches to his height and filled out to a strong 255 pounds. However, despite his size and strength, he proved a failure at offensive positions such as fullback and tight end. Even on defense he appeared to be uncoordinated, and he once played in three consecutive games without a single tackle.

However, Gene was a late bloomer. By the end of his senior season, he had distinguished himself as an offensive lineman and was projected as a third-round pick in the NFL draft when Texas A&I’s regular season ended. In the Senior Bowl, playing aggressively against all-Americans from big-time schools such as Notre Dame and the University of Southern California, Gene suddenly became first-round material.

The Emerging Champion

Impressed by his speed, strength, and intelligence, the Oakland Raiders selected Gene in the first round of the draft in 1967. Soon the Raiders became one of the AFL’s most dominant teams and played the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl II in 1968. Oakland lost that game, 33-14, but afterward missed the playoffs only four times during the years when Gene anchored the offensive line as a left guard.

Sending running backs to the left, behind Gene and his monstrous teammate, Art Shell, became an Oakland Raiders trademark play. Gene loved when a sweep to the left was called. “That’s my play,” Gene told Robert Oates in The Winner’s Edge (1980). He added,

A wide receiver wants to catch a long touchdown pass. A defensive lineman wants to break in to sack the quarterback. I get my satisfaction pulling to lead those sweeps. That’s a play where it comes down to just me and the defensive back. If I get him clean, we’re going to make a long gain. If I miss him, we don’t get a yard.

Gene’s success at his position helped lead the Raiders to two Super Bowl championships and earned him the honor of playing on four all-pro teams and six American Football Conference (AFC) all-star teams. Furthermore, he was named AFC lineman of the year in 1973 and 1974 and NFL lineman of the year in 1977. In his sixteen-season career, Gene played in 209 consecutive games out of a total of 217 games.

Continuing the Story

Gene was known for his outspokenness both on and off the field. Playing the guard position, he called out to teammates, directing their moves. As a member of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) while he was still playing, he represented league players at the bargaining table. A member of the executive committee of the Players Association since 1976, Gene was elected its president in 1980. In 1982, when contract negotiations broke down and a players’ strike ensued, Gene helped maintain the players’ morale in the face of intense criticism from fans and the press. He actively served on the Player-Club Relations Committee, the NFLPA/Bert Bell Retirement Board, the NFL’s Competition Committee, and the NFLPA’s Committee on Institutional Discrimination.

After his retirement as a player, Gene became the executive director of the NFLPA in June of 1983. In his new post, he sought to increase player confidence in the union, improve the public’s understanding of the union’s goals, enhance communication between players and management, and improve the financial situation for players. In 1987, he led the players’ union during its strike against the league’s owners. The union failed to attain its stated goals, and Gene’s leadership was not unchallenged. However, he remained executive director until his death in 2008. Through that long period, he helped build the union into one of the most powerful labor organizations in the United States. While working with the league’s owners to ensure the health and growth of the league as a whole, he helped players’ incomes increase astronomically. Toward the end of his life, he received strong criticisms for his apparent indifference to the health-care needs of old-time players who had not benefitted from the gains made by the union, but his contributions to the prosperity of current players were unquestioned.

Meanwhile, at a time when he was the only highly visible African American labor official in the United States, Gene was also involved in a variety of public charities. In 1980, he received the NFLPA’s Byron “Whizzer” White Humanitarian Award for his services to his former team, his community, and the country. In 1982, he received the A. Phillip Randolph Award in recognition of his significant accomplishments as one of the outstanding black leaders in the United States. Gene also accepted a position to serve as a national vice president for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and as a member of the National Committee on Drug Prevention, a program sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Summary

One of the greatest offensive linemen in the history of the NFL, Gene Upshaw blossomed as a player during his senior year at Texas A&I and went on to become a Super Bowl captain and champion. During his professional playing career, he was a perennial all-star-team selection, was named to six Pro Bowl teams, and was voted AFC lineman of the year twice and the NFL’s best lineman once. Gene also holds the permanent distinction as the only player to play in Super Bowl games during the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. In 1987, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, during his first year of eligibility. Seven years later, he was selected as a member of the NFL’s seventy-fifth anniversary all-time team. In 2004, the National Collegiate Athletic Association inaugurated an award in Gene’s name for the best lineman of the year among all schools in Division II—the division in which Gene’s old college team had played.

Gene’s contributions to football went well beyond his stellar performances on the field. As a high-ranking labor official, he became the primary spokesman for the rights of NFL players and earned the respect of the league’s players and management. After his sudden death from previously undiagnosed pancreatic cancer shortly before the start of the 2008 NFL season, the league ruled that every player was to honor him throughout the season by wearing a patch with his initials and former jersey number.

Bibliography

Attner, Paul. “NFL: Football’s One Hundred Greatest Players—Better than All the Rest.” The Sporting News 223 (November 8, 1999): 58-59, 62.

Barber, Phil. “NFL: Football’s One Hundred Greatest Players—The Hit Men.” The Sporting News 223 (November 1, 1999): 12-16.

Duffy, Gene. Sixty Years of the Outland Trophy. Dallas, Tex.: Atriad Press, 2006.

Flores, Tom, and Matt Fulks. Tom Flores’ Tales from the Oakland Raiders. Champaign, Ill.: Sports, 2007.

LaMarre, Tom. Stadium Stories: Oakland Raiders. Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, 2003.

Lapchick, Richard Edward. One Hundred Heroes: People in Sports Who Make This a Better World. Orlando, Fla.: NCAS, 2006.