Foreword by Mike Ditka

Although most people know me as the strong-willed football player and the head coach with those tough, emotionally charged mannerisms, many know that I am also an admirer of the underdog – the one who battles against a seemingly unbeatable foe.  I was instilled with the belief that winners never quit and quitters never win – that, most importantly, “anybody can beat anybody on a given day.”

When people think of historical turning points, they usually attribute these to the courage and personal fortitude of certain individuals who have either been thrust into the line of fire by circumstance or those who have decided to undertake an apparently insurmountable task with nothing but their principles and backbone to guide them. 

When the Bears won the Super bowl, it was the result of tenacious teamwork and guts, and all we had to do was to defeat another team.  We certainly never would have won if we’d had to battle within our own team as well.  What The Unbroken Line reveals is that players in 1982 had to battle the people who were supposed to be guiding them.  This is the worst kind of foe.

This book gives a lucid, concise, and in-depth assessment of the inadequacies and inabilities of the professional football league union leadership back in the early eighties.

The timing of the release of this book, coupled with the eventual labor relations’ talks (or possible strike) with the NFL management council in the next two years, is compelling.  It is even more compelling in the light of the $28 million verdict rendered by a California jury against the National Football League Player’s Association (NFLPA) and Players, Inc., for breaching their trust to many of their members.  In the face of that disgrace, this book enlightens the public and the active union members to the union leadership’s blatant misconduct: these leaders have ignored the court and jury’s finding by allowing those who breached their fiduciary duty to remain employed or in high positions of influence.

This is substantiated by the very fact that the new executive director of the NFLPA was chosen to continue business as usual since his election in May 2009 by retaining the same individuals the California court had discredited.  The contents and information within The Unbroken Line establish for the reader the importance of bringing to the attention of the common man the unthinkable reality that even our sports heroes are vulnerable to those who are consciously indifferent to the American principles of fair play and job integrity.  The reader will meet the people who sacrificed much and risked all for the well being of their teammates and friends.

Billy Joe and Spencer bring to the forefront certain “freight train realities” that have been discovered over the years regarding the eyebrow raising conduct and business dealings of the NFLPA union leadership in their capacity of running the NFLPA and the operation and direction of monies of the NFLPA marketing company know as Players, Inc.  In this book, the events flow from one player’s perspective to another’s; it is a quiver full of many short stories with profound characters, each with strong beliefs and idiosyncrasies that captivate the imagination.  You really feel like you’re in the room with them as they reveal that behind those closed doors in November 1982, a maverick group of football players, led by Billy Joe DuPree (Pro Bowl, NFC All-Pro with the Dallas Cowboys) and Spencer Kopf (former municipal judge, respected sports attorney, and analyst for the Dallas Morning News), enacted their version of the Statue of Liberty play – they fooled them all.  This story may have been set in motion by the arrogant conduct of the participants of the labor talks and an irascible arbitrator, but it was finished by a perfect plan with a perfectly coached team of NFL football players led by a feisty sports-industry-savvy attorney.  The story unfolds with the tension of a close football game inside two minutes in the fourth quarter, and ends with the true winners crossing the goal line in victory.

Through the actual disability benefits cases of former players, prominent attorney John Hogan wraps up this book by eloquently exposing the questionable procedures used by the NFLPA leaders and League representatives serving on the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Retirement Plan Board in determining a fair and just finding of facts.  Some of these cases are so deplorable that one wonders how, in a society drenched with rules and regulations to protect the hurt and injured in our nation, wounded warriors of the gridiron could be so shabbily treated and forgotten.

Finally, this [entire project] exposes the need for the complete renovation of the football players’ union – a complete overhaul: a new NFLPA constitution, unbiased union leadership that can have no economic interests permitted, industry standard salaries and performance bonus only, the hiring of a third party administrator to oversee economic decisions, and the establishment of disability panels with professional committee members sitting in judgment on matters where they have no personal ties to union membership or the team they work for.  This book reinforces the need for such an overhaul.  We must protect the game; we must protect the players who played, play and will play it; we must protect the entire union membership.

This book establishes that the present union leadership is satisfied with taking little or no action concerning legitimate efforts in the future care or economic well-being of its retired brethren.  The token gesture of the recent appointment of a retired player/member of the NFLPA to sit at the negotiating table in the upcoming labor talks with the owners is mere window dressing to placate former players.

Billy Joe and his fellow stouthearted men’s careful description of the current message being delivered by the NFLPA executive Director DeMaurice Smith tells us all that outside of the politically correct rhetoric, the intended movement to rectify the deplorable pension plan, and the other promised benefits to those retired players of yesteryear will remain mere rhetoric.

We have realized that our weakness is [us] – the professional football player.  The active player of today is the retired player of tomorrow.  We are all teammates in the game of and business of professional football. We can control at least a semblance of our destiny as it pertains to the protection of our fellow players, and ourselves – present and past.  This book is a call to action telling us that and more.  It is a panoramic view of the wrong that has been done and continues to be done to those who have done everything but wrong.

The message of The Unbroken Line is well taken.  It should be a model reading regarding the formation and importance of lifelong relationships based on principle, created from a unified goal that has continued these many years based on the love, devotion, and everlasting friendship shared by the cadre of players. They saved the game then, and we can save it again by following The Unbroken Line’s example now.

NFL Hall of Fame player and Super Bowl winning coach, Mike Ditka has enjoyed a career in professional athletics that few individuals can top. He is one of only two people who have won a super bowl as a player and coach. Coach Ditka is a committed activist for retired player’s rights.