60 Heroes: A Laborer for Justice

As the NFLPA worked to establish itself as a union intent on eliminating unfair labor practices employed by the league’s owners in the 1980s, it called upon the legal expertise of Tim English.

Prior to taking the role of legal counsel for the NFLPA in 1981, English served as a trial attorney for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for five years. That experience paid dividends in helping English handle and be involved with some of football’s most high-profile cases. During the 1987 players’ strike, English was in charge of the picket lines around club facilities and stadiums. That same year, he also litigated a year-long NLRB trial tied to the strike that resulted in a $30 million award for the striking players.

In 2013, English scored another victory for the union through an arbitration case for former Cincinnati Bengals Ben Utecht. The ruling, which recovered the tight end’s 2009 salary after a concussion left him unable to play that season, emphasized the players’ rights to continued pay while being injured and provided another point of reference in the ongoing battle between the league and former players regarding concussions.

Additionally, English advised for the NFLPA’s sister organizations, the Arena Football League Players Association and the NFL Coaches Association on labor law and grievance matters, before retiring in 2015 following 33 years of tremendous service to the players union.