Big Game by Mark Leibovich

Author:Mark Leibovich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

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Anthem done, we were now graced by the presence of an actual member of The Elect. Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, one of the thirty-two precious subjects in Roger Goodell’s royal pantheon, was seated nearby in a golf cart. Known around the Panthers as “the Big Cat” (or simply “Mister”), Richardson is, in terms of the commissioner’s most valued customers, Elite Medallion Gold Level status. He has been the Panthers’ only owner since the team entered the league in 1993 and very much fashions himself the singular towering figure of the franchise. He stands six-foot-three, or thirteen feet tall in the statue of Richardson that was being erected outside Bank of America Stadium.

Among the more respected and influential proprietors in the NFL, Richardson has been slowed by cardiac problems in recent years, including a heart transplant in 2009. Richardson was then the only owner who played in the NFL—two years as a receiver for the Johnny Unitas–era Colts—of which he can be quite fond of reminding people. Notwithstanding his history in pads, Richardson was known as the owner who most strongly encouraged the hardest line against the players’ union during the lockout of 2011. He infamously patronized Peyton Manning during one negotiating session, reportedly asking him, “Do I need to help you read a revenue chart, son?” He also wondered to Manning, “What do you know about player health and safety?”

Richardson is like a lot of NFL owners in that he resembles a caricature drawing of what a certain type of old tycoon might look like—although at eighty, he is closer to “middle-aged” by Membership standards. If a cartoonist wanted to create Monopoly-like renderings of these aging show poodles, he would draw, say, Robert Kraft in his French cuff links seated on his owner’s suite high chair, or Jerry Jones with his shiny white capped teeth (gleaming with dollar signs), or the Falcons’ Arthur Blank with his impeccably groomed mustache.

Richardson, a small-town boy from Spring Hope, North Carolina, made his big-time fortune by buying up a bunch of Hardee’s franchises. And he resembles precisely what you’d expect a Hardee’s kingpin to look like. He has a comb-over helmet of white hair, a bulbous nose, chubby cheeks, and a face that looks like it should be jolly—like a fast-food mascot—but instead rests in a scowl. Think of the Baby Huey cartoon, but in a bad mood.

Richardson, who wore a tailored navy suit and nifty pocket squares for this occasion, had come out to perform his pregame custom of pounding four times on a massive blue-and-black drum that had been wheeled onto the field. KEEP POUNDING was imprinted twice on the drum. Ritual complete, Richardson returned his drumstick to a guy dressed up like a panther (one that eats five meals a day at Hardee’s).

He then returned to the sidelines, where Goodell leaned over the Panther Patriarch’s golf cart and engaged him in a hushed conversation. They locked eyes. This looked intense. I could not make out what the men were saying, but there were issues to work through.

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