The Unbroken Line

Based on a True Story

Synopsis by Justin Ware

The year is 1981. Spencer Kopf is a 31 year old lawyer representing half the players on the hottest team in the fastest-growing sport in America: the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League. Short, pugnacious, and hyperactive, his star is on the rise for one main reason: he knows that to win in the NFL, you have to play two games. The one on the field, and the one off. He might not have the skill for the former, but in the latter, he’s an All-Pro.

Spence, as everyone from the janitor to owner Tex Schramm calls him, is the only lawyer allowed in the locker room and on the sidelines. Why? Because he supports his clients, but he also protects the team. Even an incident as disastrous as a player getting shot at a bar after a game – the event that opens our movie – he’ll handle it. Who cares if he’s in the middle of proposing at the Empire State Building? The stickier the situation, the faster you call Spence.

And the problems in 1981 are far stickier than today. Players snort cocaine at halftime, take painkillers and steroids like candy, bring women on board the team plane for wild parties at 30,000 feet, and blow off concussions as “getting your bell rung.” There’s no drug testing, no knowledge of CTE, no free agency, and no leverage for the players. The teams control your life, down to forcing you to keep your money in the team bank, and they expect lawyers to play ball.

And if you do, the good ol’ boy community rewards you. Money, connections, club memberships… even a judgeship lies on the horizon for Spencer Kopf. In a town as tight-knit as Dallas, he’s about to be a Made Man. 

But there’s a storm brewing. As Spence rushes back to Dallas to do damage control on the starting offensive lineman with a bullet in his abdomen (an incident he kept under wraps so successfully that to this day no one knows it happened), the rest of the team worries about an impending strike. For veterans like Billy Joe DuPree, a Super Bowl-winning, Pro Bowl tight end on the wrong side of 30, it means even fewer games left in his career; for rookies like Anthony Dickerson, who just made the team for the first time, it means a dream deferred.  

Despite assurances from the Union that they have an exit strategy and a strike fund will be available, players fear for their livelihoods. Other than big guns like star Defensive End Randy White, most don’t make enough money to wait it out (average NFL salaries were far lower in 1981), and the owners plan to use this strike to drop the hammer on the players, hard. This is their chance to break their wills, and firmly establish where power resides in the NFL.

Smack dab in the middle is Spencer Kopf, confident he can manage both dance partners. Sure, the closer he gets to the team’s inner circle, the more uncomfortable truths he’s learning – for example, he discovers that severely-injured players are cleared by team doctors so they can be cut for performance reasons and don’t have to be paid – but he thinks he can resolve those situations with his own clients without losing the trust of upper management. When he sends lineman Norm Wells to an outside doctor who says he might lose the ability to walk if he keeps on playing, Spence gets Norm an extremely rare (then) injury settlement from the team, but that’s just taking care of his guy. And when legendary Dallas sports writer Dave Smith asks him to write an editorial against the strike, that’s getting good publicity for himself and his practice.

Sure, it pisses off the Cowboys brass, but that’s just playing the game. He assures his fiancée Cathy he’s not burning any bridges, and they plan their wedding with complete confidence that Spencer’s star will continue to rise, with the money and renown that go with it.

Unfortunately, when the strike begins (after two games, despite the fact their players’ pensions would have vested after three), things get complicated quickly. The strike fund doesn’t exist, players scramble to get second jobs, cars (that were provided by the teams) get repossessed, and the Union turns out to have no plan to extricate themselves from a situation the owners are happy to find themselves in. In this game of chicken, they know who will balk first. 

The situation gets dire enough that Billy Joe DuPree reaches out to the last guy he wants to: Spencer Kopf. Billy Joe has rolled his eyes at Spence’s antics for years – he thinks he’s a cocky blowhard – but he knows what Spence did for Norm, and he sees Spence giving money to his clients to keep them above water, and quite frankly, he’s out of options. Billy Joe asks Spence to help, and the lawyer does what he does best: call a press conference. He admonishes the owners, and rails against the union, as cameras flash. As a PR move, it’s a huge success…

…but it doesn’t move the needle at all. The only thing it accomplishes is to get Spence called into Tex Schramm’s office for a speech about the symbolism of the Dallas Cowboys’ star, and to get a few more carrots offered. The wedding happens with lavish gifts, and Spencer gets his judgeship. For Billy Joe DuPree, it’s clear whose side this young lawyer is on: his own.

And that’s fine. Billy Joe is an adult, he knows a business decision when he sees one. Plus, along with the carrot, some stick has shown up – Spence’s tires are slashed, and a brick gets thrown through his window, and he and Cathy are getting threatening phone calls. Billy Joe tells Spence they’ll find another solution. He never had any faith in him anyway.

For all intents and purposes, the owners have succeeded in crushing the players, with no resistance from the Union. There will be no fair pay, no medical benefits, and no meaningful change of any kind. Spence and Cathy don formalwear and head to the Junior League Casino Night, surrounded by Dallas luminaries, a club they’re now part of, having a wonderful time – until Spence sees Anthony Dickerson, one of his clients, watering plants in a gray jumpsuit. 

Spence is hit right in the gut. These are the men he’d planned to conquer the world with, men whose backs he’d promised to have, and they’re about to lose in the biggest game of their lives. Whose team are you on? He asks himself… and makes his decision. He calls Billy Joe DuPree.

You see, Spencer Kopf might be a cocky blowhard lawyer… but he’s a good cocky blowhard lawyer. Something Tex Schramm said in their meeting spurred an idea, a legal maneuver that absolutely nobody else saw in these negotiations. Spence calls together a small group of players, including Billy Joe and Anthony, and tells them he has an absolutely insane plan – but it will require unwavering unity and serious guts. It will piss off everyone – the owners, the union, all players not in that room – but it just might end this strike. Right now. On their terms.

The cadre of players gather in Spence’s conference room. They call Tex Schramm, and Spence plays the most brazen hand imaginable. 3 hours and 45 minutes later… the strike is over. All of their demands are met. But there’s one request that comes from the other direction: they cannot tell anyone what happened, to avoid revealing the humiliating truth that a pugnacious pain-in-the-ass lawyer, a Tight End towards the end of his career, and a steadfast group of players did an end-around to both the union and the owners and beat them at their own game.

It was the ultimate triumph of Spencer Kopf’s career… but it came at a cost. He made no money from it, got no credit, and he was never again allowed in the locker room. He remained a municipal judge, and still represented players, but the old boy network and the team never quite forgave him, and even worse, neither did Cathy. 4 years later, they were divorced. 

Billy Joe DuPree never started another down of football. Anthony Dickerson had a short career with the Cowboys and bounced around to a few other teams before retiring in 1987 and dying in 2019 from complications from CTE. None of the men involved in this story have their names in the Cowboys Ring of Honor, or have had their numbers retired; they weren’t superstars. They were just a few random players standing together, and a lawyer who faced down some of the most powerful men in sports and did the right thing, one time, for all the marbles.  

An Unbroken Line.