Mar 21, 2022
A pro
football player who protests
against the actions of his government, is shunned by the
league establishment, and eventually winds up out of the
game, working for
social justice. No, it's not Colin
Kaepernick; it's the 1960s NFL saga of a
former St. Louis Cardinals linebacker named Dave
Meggyesy.
A
17th-round draft pick in 1963
out of Syracuse, Meggyesy was a steady presence and reliable
performer for seven mostly mediocre Cardinal seasons (save for a
1964
season-ending Bert Bell Benefit
[aka "NFL Playoff"] Bowl victory over Green Bay) -
when he quit at
the height of his career, repulsed by a game he saw
rife with problems and injustices, and a nation fighting an
increasingly futile war in
Vietnam.
In 1970, he
wrote a bombshell exposé of a book
called "Out of Their League"
– a blistering assault on football and the institutions that
enabled it - in which he detailed multiple ills of
the game, many of which still exist today.
Racism,
corruption, militarism, institutionalized violence, drug abuse,
collegiate "amateurism," and the relentless inevitability of
injuries and their lasting effects - blunt and searing insights
that not only
shocked fans of the
NFL, but also shook
up the broader 1970s
sports
establishment.
Still, at its
heart, Meggyesy's memoir
was also a moving
depiction
of his individual
struggle for social
justice and personal liberation, the contents of which were
both ahead of its time - and as timely as
ever.