A Tribute to Rick Sortun

Jolly Red Giant

On 3rd November 2015 a former NFL player, Rick Sortun, died. You will not see any mention of Rick Sortun in the NFL 'family'.

Rick was born in Tacoma, Washington. He was drafted in the 2nd Round of the 1964 NFL draft and played for 6 years at Guard for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Sortun wasn't cut. He didn't leave the the pinnacle of American Football because he wasn't able to play the game - he left the NFL in protest at how the NFL and the team owners were using football to promote US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Rick Sortun was a committed Marxist and a member of the International Socialists.

I am posting this thread because you will not find a tribute from the NFL for Rick Sortun - you will not find any ads or eulogies celebrating his time as an NFL player. The reason is because Sortun rejected what the NFL stood for. In an interview some years later Rick Sortun stated

“It’s big business. But a big business where all the workers go home in pain. No more and no less.”

His quote is opportune and relevant given the current controversies over the treatment of concussion and other injuries and the prevalence of PEDs of various descriptions in the NFL.

Rick Sortun was one of a small group of NFL players who were active campaigners for civil rights and in opposition to the Vietnam War who were organised by NFL rebel Dave Meggyesy. Meggyesy spent seven years as a LB with the Cardinals during the same years as Sortun.

During his time in college he organised 'teach-ins' and protests against on a range of political and social issues. Rick Sortun (like Meggyesy) later went on to be a trade union organiser and was the long-time national president of the National Labor Relations Board Union. His legacy as a sportsman was as one of the 'athletic rebels' - sportspeople who stood up for their beliefs without fear or favour.

When Sortun left the NFL he told Cardinals owner

“Someday you are going to have to decide what is most important to you: the profit you make and the property you own or the establishment of a democratic egalitarian society. In such a society football as a professional sports activity will no longer take place and I hope that when the barricades are drawn you will be on the right side.”

I love the NFL and I love watching American Football - but you cannot ignore the fact that the NFL is a product with a massive amount of money flowing through it, with huge profits and treats football players as pawns to be tossed aside as soon as they no longer can contribute to this profitable 'product'

My tribute to Rick Sortun - who passed away two months ago, at the age of 73, his family by his side and Bob Dylan playing in the background. The NFL may want to ignore you - the athlete rebels remember your contribution.

poldebruin

Interesting post, I had never heard of him before. The sixties and the early seventies seemed to have seen a lot more vocal athlete activists, and today's NFL player (and most major American Sports Athletes) tend to stay apolitical, possibly to maximise commercial interests?

That said, I too love watching the NFL, and would hate to live in a society (or Nanny State) where contact sports, NFL, Rugby, Boxing etc are seen as so unpaletable as to be banned, so in that respect, I hope Rick Sortun's prediction of a democratic egalatarian society with no place for football remains unfulfilled