PRO FOOTBALL ’86 : Most USFL Players Unemployed and Uninsured

More than 500 United States Football League players were thrown out of work July 29 when a federal jury awarded the league $1--the damages were automatically tripled to $3--in its antitrust suit against the National Football League.

It would have been worse if the players hadn’t had a union.

In an amendment to the collective bargaining agreement that freed the USFL players to seek employment elsewhere, the USFL owners agreed Aug. 8 to re-sign a minimum of 10 players each to sustain the league’s identity and to pay them each $1,500 a month through Jan. 15.

John Macik, assistant executive director of the USFL Players Assn., said: “Up until Aug. 8, we had about 500-plus players under contract for the ’86 season. (USFL teams) had signed a lot of players in anticipation of opening training camps Aug. 14 or 15.”

Each team carried a minimum of 35 players on its frozen off-season roster from last August.

“They received their off-season pay from March 1 through July 15, which was either $10,000 or 30% of their contract, depending on what they worked out with the club,” Macik said.

But Macik added, “The insurance has been cut off by the USFL. All the frozen off-season roster players were guaranteed insurance up through Sept. 14--actually, the first opening season date. We filed a grievance on that.”

The insurance included medical and dental coverage for the players and their families.

“We had maybe six guys whose wives were pregnant and would be delivering this fall,” Macik said.

“Now they’re telling the players ‘You can convert to an individual policy,’ ” Macik said. “But in standard business practice--and in a lot of states it’s against the law--you don’t cut somebody’s insurance off without giving 30 days’ notice. They cut it off the day we negotiated the amendment.

“A lot of calls are coming through. We’re trying to help them on salary information, provided by the NFL Players Assn., (and) to help them negotiate contracts with NFL clubs. We’re trying to keep them abreast of names and phone numbers of NFL player personnel people, and we’re doing the same for players who want to get into the CFL.”

The USFL union was grateful that the NFL owners granted USFL refugees a two-week roster exemption before this week’s final cuts.

“It was better than nothing,” Macik said.

But he added that it would have been even better if the NFL had opened more jobs by increasing the roster limit from 45 to 49.

As it is, about 60 recent USFL refugees will be in NFL uniforms when the season opens this weekend, and several others are on the injured-reserve lists of NFL clubs.

Even before the bottom fell out, the union had about 60 player grievances to process against the USFL. What will happen to those is uncertain.

“The players’ association is going to be running out of money by the end of September,” Macik said. “We are working furiously to put together a plan so that each of the players can retain counsel and follow his own grievance to arbitration.”