Troy Vincent’s bid to become executive director of the NFL Players Association is in jeopardy after a Virginia congressman revealed that Vincent was behind a congressional letter that raised questions about the union’s search process.
U.S. Rep. Jim Moran told The Associated Press on Friday that he learned of Vincent’s involvement after he talked to four colleagues who wrote the letter to Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao earlier this month. In the letter, the congressmen outlined their desire to ensure the integrity of the NFLPA’s process to select a successor to Gene Upshaw, who died in August.
Moran, who did not sign the letter, said he became involved at the prompting of his daughter, Mary Moran, who is the NFLPA’s director of human resources. To find out who sparked the letter, Moran said, “I asked the four congressmen and they all referred to Mr. Vincent.”
Moran said his daughter then informed NFLPA interim executive director Richard Berthelsen, who printed a copy of Moran’s findings and had the congressman verify them.
The NFLPA is unhappy that its search process was placed into question and could use Moran’s information to eliminate Vincent as one of five finalists for the NFLPA’s top job.
Moran said of the four congressmen he spoke to, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., offered the most specifics about a meeting he had with Vincent. Moran said Meeks told him that Vincent was not seeking a letter of endorsement for his candidacy, but merely wanted to ensure that the search process was fair.
The other congressmen who signed the letter were G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Edolphus Towns of New York and Bobby Rush of Illinois. All are Democrats.
Vincent did not return messages left with him. Berthelsen also did not return a message.
The SportsBusiness Journal first reported Moran identifying Vincent in a story published on its Web site Friday.
Vincent, who retired from the NFL in 2007 after 15 seasons, is a former NFLPA president and considered a front-runner for the executive director job. The other remaining candidates are Trace Armstrong, another former union president; former Bears tackle Jim Covert; Ben Utt, who played for Baltimore and Indianapolis; and Washington-based attorney DeMaurice Smith.
nion is scheduled to pare the list of finalists to three next month, and put them up for election at the NFLPA’s annual meeting in Hawaii in March.
Should Vincent not make the next cut, he still may not be entirely out of the running. A clause in the NFLPA constitution states that a candidate can be placed on the ballot with the written endorsement of three of the union’s 32 representatives.
Vincent, who ended his four-year tenure as president last spring, remains highly regarded among numerous union members.
Several NFLPA executives, however, are against Vincent’s candidacy because they view him as a union outsider likely to shake up the existing power structure put in place during Upshaw’s tenure.
Vincent nearly missed the previous cut when the list of candidates was reduced to nine in December. According to two people familiar with what took place at that search committee meeting, Vincent was not on the initial list presented by NFLPA president Kevin Mawae.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the discussion occurred behind closed doors, the two people said Vincent was added only after search committee member and New England Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel protested and said he could not present a finalists list to his members if it did not include Vincent.
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