60 Heroes: Creighton Miller Unites the Players

When three NFL players approached former Cleveland Browns legal counsel Creighton Miller about forming an organization to address player grievances, Miller led the charge.  After several confidential meetings, Miller sent a letter to selected players on 12 existing NFL teams in November of 1956, introducing the idea of forming a players association like that of Major League Baseball.  Enclosed in the letter was a petition that players could sign, authorizing him to form a players’ association on their behalf that would address their issues with the league and its clubs. 

Nearly all the players signed the petitions.  Less than two months later, Miller conducted the first ever Player Rep meeting of the NFL Players Association.  The former All-American Notre Dame running back acted as the legal counsel and chief spokesman for the NFLPA for its first 12 years while the headquarters were in Cleveland. 

Miller united the players and led the charge in challenging the owners and commissioners on player issues.  Miller helped force the original recognition of the NFLPA by the owners and then-Commissioner Bert Bell by testifying against their efforts to gain an antitrust exemption from Congress in 1957.  In the 1960s, Miller continued challenging Bell’s successor, Commissioner Pete Rozelle, on several issues and helped establish the NFL player pension plan. 

Miller did not believe that the NFLPA should be a union, and as a result, all of the concessions which the NFLPA forced management to make in the organization’s first 12 years were not reflected in a collective agreement, but rather in amendments to the NFL Constitution or the Standard Player Contract. But Miller was always willing to use the threat of an antitrust suit to gain leverage for the players.  

Miller stepped down as NFLPA legal counsel in early 1968 after resisting a movement among the players to have the NFLPA become an official union. Miller was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1976. He passed away in 2002 and will always be remembered as a hero by the NFLPA for his valiant efforts in helping establish the NFLPA.