Over the weekend, the US has been consumed with the fall from grace of the tech CEO who got caught on a Kiss Cam at a Coldplay concert canoodling with the HR Director of his company. Video of that event went viral, and the CEO resigned posthaste. Personally, I think it was less important that he and the HR Director were dallying than it was that they chose to go to a Coldplay concert “on a date” – – but that’s just me.
There was another fall from grace and summary resignation recently in the sports world. Late last week, Lloyd Howell, Jr., resigned as the Executive Director of the NFLPA. Soon on the heels of that announced departure, The Athletic reported that the union had hired “an investigator” who uncovered “documents showing Howell had charged the union for expenses involving two visits to strip clubs.” Wow!
Look, I am too lazy and insufficiently interested to go and find out the details of Lloyd Howell’s contract with the NFLPA to see what his salary was. Given the position and its level of responsibilities, let me guess that it was more than $1M annually and leave it at that. If one is pulling down that kind of annual income and if one wants to visit strip clubs as a form of entertainment, I have no problem with that whatsoever. [Aside: For the record, I have been to a strip club exactly once in my life and have no interest whatsoever in doing so again. I am not a prude; I simply do not enjoy sex as a spectator sport.] However, it is simply wrong to charge things like that to your employer’s expense account.
According to The Athletic:
“Howell charged $738.82 for a car service from one visit in Florida in 2023, ESPN reported, citing a receipt it obtained. Howell and two union employees also visited a strip club in Atlanta during the union’s annual summit in February, according to the expense reports obtained by ESPN. That outing involved $2,426 in charges. “
Over the last week or so, there has been a hubbub about why the union had not protested an arbitrator’s ruling on possible owners’ collusion regarding fully guaranteed contracts for star QBs after Deshaun Watson got one from the Browns. Pablo Torre reported on the arbitrator’s findings and about the evidence presented to him and wondered how the union could have accepted the ruling as it had. Simultaneously, folks found another arbitration ruling that went against the union after NFLPA President, JC Tretter, suggested that NFL running backs “fake injuries” to sit out practices/games to shed light on the importance of those players. [Aside: Reports say those statements directly violate certain sections of the CBA. I tried to follow the logic of that reporting but the certainty of that charge is beyond my reading of the CBA. Take that statement for what it is worth.]
So, were those two arbitration rulings handled in some sort of quid pro quo? And if so, is that strategy beneficial to the union members as a body? And then you add the strip club expenses on top of that speculation and Lloyd Howell said this in his farewell statement:
“It’s clear that my leadership has become a distraction to the important work the NFLPA advances every day.”
I have to wonder exactly what “important work” the NFLPA was advancing in those visits to strip clubs …
And this morning, as they say in the late-night infomercials, “But wait, there’s more …”
This morning, it was reported in the Washington Post that JC Tretter has also stepped down from the union. Tretter was most recently serving as the union’s “Chief Strategy Officer” and said he was leaving because he had “nothing left to give” to the union. Let me just say that not everyone was saddened to learn of Tretter’s decision. ESPN.com quoted former linebacker and now podcaster, Will Compton:
“We’ve gotta be the dumbest Union in all of sports. Ya — let’s vote for the guy who was in charge of hiring Lloyd Howell. Let’s vote for the guy who swept a lot of sh*t under the rug when NFL owners were colluding to not give out guaranteed contracts. The NFLPA is constantly outmatched and it’s truly our own doing.”
So, there is going to be a major overhaul of Mahogany Row at NFLPA HQs, but the union folks might want to do a bit more analysis of their operations before letting the dust settle:
- Howell was “caught” padding the expense account based on work done by an “investigator hired by the union”. Who figured out that was a good thing to do and what information did that part of the organization have that justified that sort of hiring?
- Are their auditors hired by the NFLPA to check the financial accounting there? If so, what was their role in this “discovery” – – or their lack of a role?
It just seems to me that there is more activity inside the NFLPA that is not closely related to the mission of “representing the best interests of the membership” and that additional activity needs to be identified and minimized. The Howell/Tretter situations are not nearly as salacious as the Kiss Cam exposé was but both situations indicate to me that there needs to be a greater focus on “purpose” in those organizations that seems to have prevailed in the recent past.
Finally, perhaps the best way to close today after pondering on the Kiss Cam situation and the NFLPA upheaval is to recall the words of Sir Walter Scott:
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………