He was a great guard … you can probably still find old footage of him & Lambert battling; and the two were probably about 50/50 when it comes to who won each individual battle.

Also one of the few hall of famers (walk-in, first ballot hall of famer nontheless) who went on to have a second, incredibly successful career within the company.

Whatever legacy he might leave behind, his work with the labor of the NFL helped assure that a town like Pittsburgh can continue to compete— in finances, publicity, staffing, and quality of players— with a city like New York. Everything he did was for the love of the game … and he made sure that players who came along after him had the types of benefits he never had … benefit, severance, and pension packages similar to what employess in any other Fortune 500 company have. He helped the youngsters of today get what he and his fellow old-timers never could’ve imagined.

And working with the evolution of NFL labor for that long, especially with an impending labor agreement negotiation in the immediate future, gives someone the working knowledge necessary to succeed that no one, no matter how educated or informed, will be able to duplicate right out of the gate.

MLB might have a stronger players’ union, but the money is too uneven within the overall landscape. That’s why teams like the Pirates tend to serve as nothing more than a minor league trainging ground for players who eventually go on to success elsewhere.

Regardless, with a new labor agreement in the works, this is something really worth paying attention to. Upshaw was a lot like Dan Rooney, despite being on the opposite side of the table, in that he knew what concessions to make, what compromises were best for the game, and when to stand firm. Whoever’s next in the succession of the union’s heirarchy has his hands full.