I remember Upshaw as a big, scary, take no prisoners lineman with the Raiders, with considerable fondness.

He appeared to take the same hard-assed attitude into his job with the NFLPA with less success. As other have pointed out, the NFL Players Association is probably the weakest of the major sports players associations, with the possible exception of the NHLPA.

I'm too young to remember Gene Upshaw as a player, but he did play a powerful role in the NFL I grew up watching. He is being described as a hard nosed guy as head of the players union, but my perspective on it is that the other top American sports have much stronger unions. I know there was grumbling about wanting to replace him as recently as this spring. He seems to have been a decent guy who was well respected to have served as long as he did. His sudden death is saddening.