Radovich V. National Football League - Background of The Case

Background of The Case

In 1938 undrafted University of Southern California graduate William "Bill" Radovich began his NFL career as a guard with the Detroit Lions. He chose to sign with them because they were the only team in the league that guaranteed players an off-season job.

After four seasons, during which he made sportswriters' All-Pro lists, he left to serve in the Navy during World War II. He returned to the Lions after the war ended, in 1945.

The next year he asked to be traded to the Los Angeles Rams, or be better paid, as his father, who lived near that city, was seriously ill and he wanted to be able to spend more time with him. Lions' owner Fred Madel Jr. refused, saying (according to Radovich) "I'd either play in Detroit or I wouldn't play anywhere". Since his contract had expired, he instead signed with the Los Angeles Dons of the rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and played with them for two seasons, despite Madel's promise to put him on a blacklist for five seasons. In 1948 the San Francisco Clippers of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), a minor pro football league whose clubs had some affiliations with the NFL, offered him a position as a player and coach. After learning that the NFL had indeed blacklisted Radovich due to his play in the AAFC and would punish any club that did hire him, however, the Clippers withdrew their offer.

Radovich had to take jobs outside of professional football. One was waiting tables at Los Angeles's Brown Derby restaurant. There he met Joseph Alioto, a former antitrust litigator with the Justice Department. In conversation, he told Alioto how he had come to this, and Alioto responded by sketching out a legal brief on the back of a cocktail napkin.