60 Heroes: Finding a New Leader

After earning All-America honors as a receiver at the University of Wisconsin, Pat Richter joined the NFL in 1963 when the Washington Redskins picked him in the first round.  Richter played in Washington for eight seasons as both a tight end and a punter.

Following the merger of the NFLPA and AFLPA in 1970, Richter became the Redskins’ Player Rep and was on the first ever Executive Committee of the combined union that same year.  The versatile player was an active member of the NFLPA’s negotiating committee during the lockout and subsequent strike that occurred in the summer of 1970, attending nearly every negotiating session and helping the NFLPA eventually finalize a new CBA in the spring of 1971. 

Richter also played an instrumental role in the hiring of two other NFLPA heroes in Ed Garvey, who worked with the players’ negotiating committee as outside counsel, and Leonard Lindquist in 1970 and 1971, respectively. Thirty-seven years later, Richter was retained by the NFLPA to assist in the search for a new Executive Director after Gene Upshaw’s passing in 2008.

Richter, who went on to become the athletic director at Wisconsin from 1989 to 2004, is a hero for consistently fighting for the rights of his fellow players and assisting in important decisions that helped shape into what the NFLPA has become today.