John Thomas Gordy, Jr. (July 17, 1935 – January 30, 2009) was an
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
player for 11 years from
1957
1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...
to
1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
. He was an
offensive guard
Offensive may refer to:
* Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative
* Offensive (military), an attack
* Offensive language
** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict inj ...
for the
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...
.
Early life and education
Gordy played his final season of
high school football
High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...
at lineman for the former Isaac Litton High School in the
Inglewood neighborhood of
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
. He was named second-team all-Nashville Interscholastic League and honorable mention All-State.
Gordy subsequently played
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
at the
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
. While at the University of Tennessee, he was a member of the
Lambda Chi Alpha
Lambda Chi Alpha (), commonly known as Lambda Chi, is a college fraternity in North America which was founded at Boston University in 1909. It is one of the largest social fraternities in North America, with more than 300,000 lifetime members a ...
fraternity. In his senior season, he served as captain of the
Vols. In 2018, he was voted one of the 10 greatest players from the Nashville area ever to have played UT football by a panel of sportswriters. He was a teammate of
Johnny Majors
John Terrill Majors (May 21, 1935June 3, 2020) was an American professional football player and college coach. A standout halfback at the University of Tennessee, he was an All-American in 1956 and a two-time winner of the Southeastern Confe ...
, who served as his alternate captain (and went on to become a legendary coach at the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
and at Tennessee). The
1956 Vols won the championship of the
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...
.
Career
National Football League
Gordy was drafted in the second round of the
1957 NFL Draft
The 1957 National Football League draft had its first four rounds held on November 26, 1956, at the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia and its final twenty-six rounds on January 31, 1957 at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel also in Philadelphia.
This was ...
by the Lions. The
1957 Lions, quarterbacked primarily by
Tobin Rote
Tobin Cornelius Rote (January 18, 1928 – June 27, 2000) was an American football player who played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football Le ...
and with Gordy playing a key role in the blocking schemes, won the NFL championship, the last Lions team to do so (as of 2022). He played in three
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
s during his professional career.
Gordy served as president and executive director of the professional football players union, the
National Football League Players Association
The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director De ...
. As such, he was, in 1969, a key negotiator of the first
collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The i ...
agreement in major professional sports. Shortly after its ratification, he was forced to retire from the NFL due to a lingering knee injury.
Post NFL career
"Participatory journalist"
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
stated that Gordy was the inspiration for his second book (of three) about professional American football, ''Mad Ducks and Bears''. Plimpton initially met Gordy in 1960 while doing early research for what would become his first pro football book, ''
Paper Lion
''Paper Lion'' is a 1966 non-fiction book by American author George Plimpton.
In 1960, Plimpton, not an athlete, arranged to pitch to a lineup of professional baseball players in an All-Star exhibition, presumably to answer the question, "How ...
'', and was told by Gordy that in his opinion there was an obvious wide market for a book about football line play, consisting of young men and boys currently playing those positions and older men who had done so in the past, together forming a potential readership of millions. Gordy, whose football nickname was "Bear" due to his hirsuteness, was able to interest his erstwhile training camp roommate,
Alex Karras
Alexander George Karras (July 15, 1935 – October 10, 2012) was an American football player, professional wrestler, sportscaster, and actor. He was a four-time Pro Bowl player with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), ...
("Mad Duck") in the project as well, although the book was not published until 13 years after this initial meeting. Rather than being the technical work about methods and techniques that Gordy had originally envisioned, it is instead primarily a collection of humorous anecdotes and vignettes, with only minimal attention paid to technical aspects of football.
Around 1970, Gordy became President of Visual Sounds, Inc., the audio-visual subsidiary of
A & R Recording
A & R Recording Inc. was a major American independent studio recording company founded in 1958 by Jack Arnold and Phil Ramone.
History
Before founding A & R Recording in 1958, Arnold and Ramone had been working at JAC Recording, Inc.; Arnold h ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
Gordy became the California state director of
Fellowship of Christian Athletes
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is an international non-profit Christian sports ministry founded in 1954 and based in Kansas City, Missouri. It has staff offices located throughout the United States and abroad.
History
FCA was found ...
in 1999. At that time, there were only a handful of public high schools that were participating with FCA. By the time John died, nearly every single high school in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
had an FCA group on their campus. Gordy considered this his greatest accomplishment.
Gordy died on January 30, 2009, in
Orange, California
Orange is a city located in North Orange County, California. It is approximately north of the county seat, Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana. Orange is unusual in this region because many of the homes in its Old Town District were built before ...
, after a lengthy battle with
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
.
Personal life
Gordy was married three times. He first married – on June 2, 1957, in
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
– Yvonne Hodge. He again married – on July 1, 1972 in
Blue Hill, Maine
Blue Hill is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,792 at the 2020 census. It is home to the Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, George Stevens Academy, the Blue Hill Harbor School, The Bay Sch ...
– Jean Becton DeMeritt (''née'' Jean Sprague Becton) (also her second marriage), a 1965 graduate of
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...
and granddaughter of
Maxwell Becton Maxwell Wilber Becton (22 August 1868 Kingston, North Carolina – 2 January 1951 Rutherford, New Jersey) co-founded Becton Dickinson in 1897 with Fairleigh S. Dickinson.
Biography
Born in Kinston, North Carolina, Becton moved to Rutherford, New ...
, co-founder of
Becton Dickinson
Becton, Dickinson and Company, also known as BD, is an American multinational medical technology company that manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems, and reagents. BD also provides consulting and analytics services in certai ...
, a multinational medical device manufacturer. Jean and John Gordy divorced December 29, 1982, in
Santa Barbara County, California
Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria.
Santa Barba ...
. John Gordy married again to Betty Euelene Epperson (''maiden'').
Gordy's father, Poppa John Gordy (''né'' John Thomas Gordy; 1904–1961), a
dixieland jazz
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...
, swing, ragtime, and honky-tonk pianist, was for more than 25 years, musical director of ''The Noon Show'' on station
WSM, the
NBC Radio Network
The NBC, National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the Blue Network, NBC Blue Network it was ...
affiliate in
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
.
Bibliography
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordy, John
1935 births
2009 deaths
American football offensive guards
Executive Directors of the National Football League Players Association
Detroit Lions players
Nebraska Cornhuskers football coaches
Tennessee Volunteers football players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
Activists from Nashville, Tennessee
Deaths from cancer in California
Trade unionists from Tennessee
Presidents of the National Football League Players Association
Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park
Players of American football from Nashville, Tennessee
Coaches of American football from Tennessee