DeMaurice Smith’s First In‑Depth Interview on “Turf Wars” and the Recent NFLPA Controversy

Dee, in light of recent events, specifically the controversy around Lloyd Howell, I wanted to ask you a couple questions about the fallout from your vantage point. What leadership lessons do you believe can be taken from this moment?

Yeah, you know, first. Ethan, again, great to be back. I think from a leadership standpoint, I think the first lesson is that leadership is forever. It doesn't really doesn't start with the titular head of any organization. It doesn't even start. Start with the second or third person in control. That leadership component is a comprehensive leadership component. And in the nflpa, where still a little bit of my heart is, watching this causes a tremendous amount of sadness. I look back on 2009 going forward, and I am absolutely convinced that the only reason we were able to accomplish the things that we did was really the leadership that came from the board. And I was blessed to have guys like Drew Brees and Brian Dawkins and Kevin Malai and, you know, even people that a lot of folks have never heard of, you know, like Kyle Vanden Bosch and guys like Zach Diassi. You know, we read a lot about the presidents and we read a lot about the executive directors, but the core group of leadership for players, for the time that I was there, was really the rank and file union members who were board members. And then everybody has a job to do. And so, you know, I look back and again, I certainly was there for the process that led to the election. I didn't play any role in that. But now we are or they are where they are. And it is now a moment where the board, which is the core of the union, has to stand up, understand the mistakes that were made, and simply come up with a comprehensive plan of how they move forward. And that's leadership. And there's going to be a tendency to blame certain people. There's going to be a tendency to blame one or two people. There's going to be a tendency to blame the process. Leadership lessons typically start with looking inward rather than looking outward. And now is a time for what I would call ruthless introspection.

Appreciate that. When you reflect on the situation, what do you see as the biggest opportunity costs of missteps in leadership, both for the organization and the players it serves?

Yeah, I think two big things, you know, one, I look back on 2009, when I stepped into the role. You know, obviously Gene Upshaw had passed away. Titular strong leader, someone who was able to do and accomplish a lot with. With a really small set of resources. And you think about that history of the union, you know, the NFL players had gone through failed strikes. But, but even with failed strikes, Gene managed to keep their pensions, managed to keep a decent share of the salary cap, managed to keep their 401ks, managed to keep their workers comp. And you can look at that. And I'm sure there's people out there who would say, well, you know, things weren't great back then. You know, I told players when I joined, if I had been working for the owners in that paradigm, we would have put the players in the ground. I mean, you, you come away from a failed strike paradigm. You know, when that happens in, in a, in a business transaction or in a business ecosystem, people pounce and they absolutely put people away. And I, I look back and I think the things that Gene did, the. Jim, Jim Quinn, you know, the, the fights for free agency from 1972 to 1993, you know, everybody wants to say things like, well, you know, it's better to negotiate than litigate. The only reason the players have free agents is litigation. The only reason they have a collective bargaining agreement was that was literally born out of 20 years of litigation. So I look at Gene and what he built, and I stepped into that role with really one goal of building upon what, what he left. But 2009, we probably had $250 million in the bank. We probably had three or four major business partners. We had no equity or assets under their management. And by the time I left, the NFLPA probably has a little bit less than a billion dollars in the bank. They're the majority shareholder of a multi billion dollar company. We probably have more than 20 or 30 business partners. The equity portfolio is larger than any other union in the world. The leadership lesson is it's a really complicated and hard job that requires introspection, critical thought, the input of a large number of people with a particular expertise, and a level of transparency that, you know, at times will lead to a little bit of chaos and will lead to, you know, things running less smoothly than perhaps a Fortune 500 board meeting. But that's okay. It's okay. Democracy should be messy, it should be ugly. And, and one of the things that I cannot help but look at now is how many parallels between, you know, what was going on, you know, at the NFLPA and the parallels to what are happening in our country. And, and if you do leave democracy to a small number of people, you can get the right answer, but end up with the wrong result. Because if you're divesting people from an understanding of what's going on, if your perspective isn't like this and instead is like this. I guarantee you you will end up with a pool of people making decisions in a vacuum. And that's just not. It might be efficient. And somewhere along the line, Ethan, we all started bowing down to the God of efficiency. The forefathers made a lot of mistakes and they were far less than perfect people. But the Constitution wasn't written to be efficient. It wasn't designed to create an efficient government. No, it was designed to create a more perfect union. And that is hard work. And it starts with, we will never be perfect. And so I think as an executive, I always tried to pull back and not fall into that trap of what's efficient, what's the least cost way of getting to X. Obviously you have to balance a budget and you have to make prudent decisions, decisions. But the altar of efficiency was never the goal of a labor union. I want a labor union to look after everybody from the top line worker on the assembly line to the first year worker who's coming in as an apprentice. You want there to be safety across the board. You want them to operate as a unit. You want them to achieve things together. And the only way you can do that is, is by having a very broad, inclusive way of engaging it. And I will say this because it's going to make people a little bit upset. It's okay to force everybody to be a part of the process. And sometimes that requires force from a, from a leader because it is really easy to sit in the room and say, okay, I think the right answer is X. And you just, you just move and you go. I know sometimes it drove our guys crazy, but that process of making them vote on the process of making them learn the history, that there is a inextricable line between the civil rights movement and the labor movement. There is a strong tie between the growth in the women's suffrage movement, for example, and our democracy. And there is a definite link between the decline of hardcore unions and the quality of life for American workers. And so I know our players used to lose their minds when I would start off a team meeting and talk about the Triangle Shirtwaits factory fire. And, you know, you've got guys sitting there thinking about, okay, why do I have to learn about Ludlow? Why do I have to hear about a strike in Colorado where the owner turned, you know, the U.S. army and private actors and fired guns at workers? Or why do I need to know about a group of women inside of a shirtwaist factory and the exits were blocked off? Well, the Reason you have to learn that is because management and their obligation to shareholders is always about efficiency. It's always about how do we get more of a buck so that we reward the shareholders and the folks who run the company. And by the way, that's capitalism. And to a certain extent that's fine, but that is not the goal of a labor union. Right? I mean, nobody there should be thinking about how do we increase the level of equity in a business or that should be the top line issue for us. No, labor unions are wages, hours and working conditions. And, and by the way, nobody should feel sorry, but let's just make sure that we level set here. I'm not asking anyone to, you know, to pull out the tiniest violin and, and play the tiniest sad story for NFL players, whether it's football players, basketball players, hockey players, you know, all of those folks are receiving somewhere close to 50 cents on every dollar they generate. Think about that for a second. Almost everybody in the top four labor unions are receiving almost 50 cents for every dollar of revenue that they generate. I guarantee you right now there's no one at Amazon or Google or any other major company in the country that's earning 50 cents on every dollar they generate. So, you know, these labor unions on the sports side have been successful, but the key to success going going forward is to understand the risk and the challenges that are out there and to make sure that everybody understands the mission. And if you have a group of people who become untethered to the history of labor in this country, they become untethered to the hardcore lessons that we unfortunately had to learn through things like Shirtwaist, Triangle and Ludlow, or they become untethered from their own history. You can always end up making decisions that are right, but in the long run, you risk a long term detrimental result.

Powerful. I got goosebumps hearing you say that. There is a lot of spotlight back on the inner workings of the NFL and its leadership has Turf wars, which for anybody that's not aware, is a book that you recently wrote, which is an NFL insider used explosive account of the ruthless power between the struggles of owners and players. Do you think that this book has now taken on a new level of urgency and relevance?

You know, yes, I thought, you know, I wanted to write Turf wars for really one reason. The more I thought about, you know, the almost 15 years that I ran the place and looking at all of the issues that we had to deal with, the more it became literally a microcosm of what was going on in the country. And the second reason is, I think, for good and for bad sport, and especially the NFL is the cultural epicenter of America. It just is. And I mean that honestly, as both a good thing and as a bad thing. And so it's one thing to want to write a book and just tell a bunch of stories, and that's great. That. That really didn't appeal to me. What did appeal to me was the fact that whether it was. We've already talked about labor and management, race and class, the role of politics in both business and in sport, the obvious battles between people who are working for a living and people who own. And again, I didn't write the book to be some sort of critique on capitalism because, again, you're talking about a player population where, thanks to the last collective bargaining agreement, I think minimums this year are approaching $900,000 to a million dollars. And there was over a billion dollars spent in free agency the last time. So nobody should be crying a river. But I think everybody sometimes forgets that the only reason those things have materialized for players in a crossboard is really fights and this idea that you have to hold people accountable and this idea that unchecked power will simply overtake you. And so I ended up wanting to write a book that framed that not only with respect to players, you know, against American business, but to also frame it against, you know, working people. And the two hardest working people that I know of are my parents. And their journey matched that journey of a lot of African Americans from the Jim Crow south to. To the north to try to find better jobs. That great migration, you know, changed the country. And when you look at, you know, when you look at sort of the core growth of the middle class, you know, there were definite things that legislators and politicians did in order to increase the role of the middle class. And those things went along with the Civil Rights act, those things went along with the growth in protecting women's reproductive rights. I mean, I didn't want to write a book that just told a football story, because sports is an American story. And all of those things coincide to, you know, speak about a narrative where we can envision a world or reimagine ourselves into a world where it's okay to try to take care of everybody, to try to rectify and deal with the wrongs of the past. What I fear is happening is sometimes what I saw over the last 15 years. I mean, the battle with the owners are always a battle where they want more control and more money. And on our side, we want more money for our players, and we want less control by them and think. Some people fall into this sort of magical world where they somehow think, well, the only thing a guy like Dee has to do or the. Or the head of the NFLPA or any other labor leader has to do is man, just simply walk in and utter some sort of magic words, you know, while you're at the conference table, sitting apart from each other. And somehow, you know, somehow the person on the other side is going to go, oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Yes, yes, yes. We will give you more healthcare. We'll give you a larger K. It typically doesn't work like that. It never has. And also, it's okay, right? And so turf wars for me, developed into this idea of wild sports are great. Maybe this is a great foil for people to understand that they have a personal responsibility to be more than a spectator. And I mean that from both watching people on the field and watching people in Congress, we have far more of a duty than just to wake up in the morning and post something that we're either for this or against this. Literally. If the civil rights movement had boiled down to simply what people were willing to say publicly, it would not have been successful. I mean, it actually required people to march on the streets. It actually people putting themselves in harm's way, whether it was the water hoses or the dogs. It absolutely required the mobilization of voters to actually vote. It envisioned people making sacrifices. It required some of those sacrifices to be the ultimate cost. And so I wanted to write a book that certainly used the foil of what was going on from 2009 until 2023. But I also wanted to talk about the history that led to it, the history that is the same history for literally millions of Americans who fought their way to a better life. But also to give a little bit of a warning that if we're willing to simply be spectators, there are a group of people who are willing to take control. And at the of the day, this idea that just because someone has been a good business person or somebody has run a good company, I don't care what side of the political aisle you're on, if you believe that giving that person a blank check to make a decision about what's in your best interest, history tells you that that's a mistake.

It's great. I think you do a really remarkable job of tying sports to American history and current present date of America. And it's true. I want to talk about the opportunity of rejoining the nflpa. If that opportunity was presented to you would you consider returning to lead? And under what circumstances would that be something you would entertain?

You know, Ethan, I had a great run. I think that it's important to look at things as sort of chapters of a book. A little bit like chapters of your life. I loved being a homicide prosecutor. I loved being a federal prosecutor. I have no interest in going back. I did everything I wanted to accomplish. Same thing in private practice. I loved it. No interest in going back. Exact same thing with the NFL Players Association. It is time for those group of people to come together with a level of ruthless introspection and make decisions about their own future. And that, that is not for someone else. It's for an entirely different group of people. Right. We're there now and I wish them the best. My heart is to a certain extent still with, with the union. I love the mission. You know, I got to know Ed Garvey really well, the first executive director, because I brought him back because Gene was gone. I have the deepest love and appreciation for Gene because I could not have done or accomplished what he was able to accomplish. But now it's time for a group of players to rise up and take the mantle of leadership in the same way that Kevin Moai did and Brian Dawkins did and Dominic Foxworth did and Mike Vrabel did and Kevin Carter did and Mark Bruder did. And, you know, guys like Brian Watson. I mean, those guys, I can't imagine what it was like for them to literally wake up one morning to find out that their executive director had passed away and he had been in the job longer than most of them had been alive. You know, you just think about that for a second. Those guys, by my collective memory of them, is how old and sage they were when I met them in 2009, even though they were probably collectively 27 years old. Right. It's now the time for the same group of people who are there now, and particularly the board. It's tough. It's a tough place. Where they are right now. There is. There are tremendous amount of fail safes right now. There's a collective bargaining agreement in 2030. I know the way the league operates. They have started to take steps towards that right now. This is a time for leadership to rise up beyond the age of your years. But that job is now for somebody.

Final question. You just mentioned it's time for a new group of people to take on the mantle of leadership. If you were to give those people one place to start, what would that be?

Well, you know, I believe in History so much for me. I got to work with Marvin Miller, the historic leader of the baseball players union. And Marvin was both probably the best teacher and the scariest individual I've ever met in my life. Literally. He yelled at me for almost an hour about why I would ever take this job or take that job. I would read Marvin Miller's book Whole New Ballgame because I think there is a tendency to believe that, you know, the way in which he came out of the labor movement and came into the frame or the ecosystem of baseball, and, you know, the fight that he had to teach his guys about what it meant to be a part of a union, then inspire them to become real leaders. I think there's a tendency to believe that just because that happened in the past, that that is not relevant to the future. It is entirely relevant. And I think that, you know, any book or any person that can just be brutally honest about history and the way in which things operate. You know, I've become sort of a fan lately of. I read a book a couple of months ago about Dunning Kruger. You know, this philosophy or this idea that, you know, the people with the least amount of expertise generally have this psychological flaw of reinterpreting things in a way where they believe that they know more than they do. I always started off every job by believing that I knew virtually nothing. And for me, that was the way in which I thought that I would not only learn, but I would also learn about my own biases, my own ways that perhaps I think about things that might not be accurate. And I think the only way to do that now is to approach things in a way where you assume or accept that maybe you don't fully understand it. And by the way, that's the way you learned. That's the way I learned. It's hard to teach, and it's hard to learn if you believe you already know. And so I would, you know, I would challenge anybody. And by the way, I think that lesson is the same for young people who enter that first real job. You know, whether you're, you know, like Alex, you're going to Goldman Sachs, or, you know, somebody wants to go to law school, there is a tremendous amount of work that is necessary just to get to the next day. And I dig it. I know it. We've all lived it. But it's also important to understand, okay, how did this get here? And how have other people sort of managed this role that. That I am now doing? I think that sometimes, yes, we all have to find our way through our own journey. And it has to be our own journey, but it's a mistake to believe that somebody hasn't done this journey already. Right. And. And so, you know, just like a cryptographer or somebody who's trying to find their way through, through some sort of, you know, path or guide or on the open sea. I mean, everybody consults a map, right? And so I think right now, I think the challenge would be how do you find your right map? How do you set your right guidepost? And I would look at, I think Whole New Ballgame is one of them, I think, you know, I wouldn't wish the Grapes of Wrath on anyone, but it's probably one of the most important books that I've ever read. And I think also just understanding how all of this fits together. Ta Nehisi Coates is, I think, one of the most gifted writers who has been able to not only understand sort of the, you know, what looks like disparate points of what's going on in society and the world, but then sort of masterfully drawing them all together in a narrative or in a cohesive narrative that helps us understand it. And so, yes, you know, I would. Some people would say, well, you know, what does Deflategate have to do with, you know, what's going on at the NFLPA now? Oh, there's an answer. You know, what does, you know, this issue of private equity, you know, with. With NFL teams, man, how does that connect back to the quarterbacks club in the. It does. Right. And. And so I wanted to write a book that. That tried to, in my own limited way, to try to do what a lot of authors and a lot of writers have successfully done, tying it with an eye. An eye towards why is it meaningful to understand, you know, and I think that, you know, I don't know if you've read it, Viktor Frankl's A Man's Search for Meaning. If you haven't spent time trying to figure out what does this all mean, you're really just stuck on this sort of episodic, individual, isolated, disparate, blah. And you can be successful. You really can. But I'm not sure you will ever truly understand or appreciate the whole. And that's where my hope that the player leadership decides to embark on right now. What. What's the whole. And good luck to them. It's an important place.

You talk a lot about history. DU will go down in history as one of the leaders that reshape the role of athlete advocacy in American sports. And somebody is going to listen to this, and they're going to read turf wars and they're going to take this guidance and act on it. So I want to say thank you very much for.

Thank you. Thank you. It's great to talk to you always.