Hunter, Billy 1943–

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Billy Hunter 1943–

Union executive

Billy Hunter has always prided himself on being a streetfighter, literally and, especially, figuratively. His tough struggles for justice have been waged at all levels of society, but since 1996 they have been waged at their most visible level, as executive director of the National Basketball Association’s players union. Hunter has brought the same drive and conscience to this role he has brought to all the others in which he has found himself since the mid-1960s.

Hunter was born George William Hunter in 1943, and was raised by his mother’s parents, John and Loretta Holmes, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, across the river from Philadelphia. It was a poor, black environment, but Hunter had a lot of contact with his white peers, and was the first black youngster to play in the local Little League.

“Although I lived in a segregated community, a lot of my friends were white,” he told the New York Times.“So I was like the black kid who got to leave the black neighborhood to go into the white neighborhood and play with all the guys. My athletic ability opened a lot of doors.”

Sports dominated much of Hunter’s childhood, but one sidelight which interested him early on was black history. He used to listen to his great-Uncle Ben tell stories about William Still, a great-great-grandfather who helped run the underground railroad in Philadelphia.

“As a young kid growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, you never really thought about it,” he told the New York Times.“Black history hadn’t come into fruition or being. It wasn’t taught, so there was no relevance. No one was promoting black contributions to America. But then the ’60s came along and Alex Haley’s ’Roots.’ It made you think about your past.”

Hunter attended Syracuse University, where he was the captain of the football team. He was expected to be a first-round draft pick in the National Football League, but he suffered an injury in his senior year which damaged his value to pro scouts. While at Syracuse he organized his teammates into a boycott of Southern schools with segregated stadiums. He also became friends with future NBA Hall-of-Famer Dave Bing, an association which would land him a job one day.

Hunter overcame his injury to scrap out a three-year NFL

At a Glance …

Born George William Hunter in 1943; raised by grandparents John and Loretta Holmes in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.Education: Attended Syracuse University, 1962-66; law degrees from Howard University and the University of California.

Career: Named U.S. Attorney for Northern California by President Jimmy Carter, 1977; prosecuted members of Jim Jones’ Peoples’ Temple and the Hell’s Angels; instrumental in the pardoning of Patty Hearst; entertainment lawyer, represented rapper Hammer, among others; ran for U.S. House of Representatives against longtime incumbent Ron Dellums (lost); executive director, National Basketball Association Players’ Assn., 1996-.

Addresses: National Basketball Association Players Association, 1700 Broadway, Suite 1400, New York, New York, 10019.

career with the Washington Redskins and Miami Dolphins, but he knew football was not going to be his meal ticket, and injuries forced him out of the game in the late 1960s. He returned to school and quickly earned law degrees from Howard University and the University of California. While at Howard he led a protest that locked up the law school and resulted in replacement of the dean.“My first child was born while I was in the school behind the chains,” he told the Chicago Tribune. Early in his law career Hunter wrote briefs supporting Huey Newton and the Black Panthers.

In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed Hunter to the U.S. Attorney’s office for Northern California, and in that position Hunter was involved in a number of high-profile cases. He prosecuted members of Jim Jones’ Peoples’ Temple in the aftermath of the mass suicide in Guyana, and he also prosecuted members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. Perhaps the most visible case he was involved with on that job was in his role as Carter’s emissary in his review of the Patty Hearst conviction. Hunter convinced Carter to pardon the heiress. He could not help but reflect on the irony of the two of them coming together from such different backgrounds, and recalled to the New York Times: “At one point I said to her: “I can”t believe I’m the one who makes a recommendation whether you go free. Here I am,.a kid who came from a very poor, black environment. And here you are, on the opposite end. I mean, your grandfather is William Randolph Hearst. How do we intersect at this point and time?’ She just chuckled, and said, “That’s amazing, isn’t it.’”

Hunter went into private practice after leaving the prosecutor’s office, and worked on a wide variety of cases. He had some entertainment clients, including rapper Hammer. He was involved in litigation and some white-collar defense work. He represented a few athletes, but tried to steer clear of that for the most part, and he took on a number of pro-bono cases.“He would take cases of young guys that had recently been arrested for one thing or another and represent them,” one of his partners, Bill Webster, told the New York Times.“They were always someone’s kids he knew or a member of the church. Sometimes, he was loyal to a fault.” His scrappiness shone through on occasion, too, as during his years in private practice he came to blows with a lawyer who called him a racial epithet, and with rapper Bobby Brown.

In 1996 Bing convinced Hunter to give up his resistance to get into sports law and take the position as executive director of the NBA players’ union. The union had been plagued by problems for years and did not get much respect, even from many of its own members. There was even a rumor that circulated that the union made Hunter swear an oath that he would not back down from management. Hunter said that was not true, but told the Los Angeles Times, “They (the players) wanted someone to stand up, and someone that they felt would be committed to them. I think that was the issue. There was the perception among the membership that Simon Gourdine (Hunter’s predecessor, who also had been NBA deputy commissioner) was in the back pocket of the ownership… .They wanted to know, did I have any other agenda….I just said, “I’ve always prided myself on being fair, being a hard worker, objective and professional. And if I accept you as a client, it’s always been my position to give you 110 percent.’ And I also assured them that I could hang in there if I had to, that I could be tough.”

Hunter took over with a definite agenda, which including strengthening union solidarity, bettering the position of the union’s“middle-class,” or mid-range salary players, and organizing the players of the Women’s National Basketball Association. The first time the sports world took much note of him in his new job came early in the 1997-98 season, when Golden State Warrior Latrell Sprewell was suspended for attacking his coach. The punishment of a one-year suspension and forfeiture of his contract was unprecedented, and many observers expected Hunter and the union would invoke race in their defense of Sprewell. Those observers were impressed that Hunter never raised race as an issue in the case, even when it was publicly suggested by others, but rather used past precedents to successfully convince an arbitrator to reduce the suspension.

The big issue which loomed, however, came at the beginning of the following season, when the owners shut down the league to rewrite the labor agreement they had with the players. The issues were myriad and complex, and Hunter’s objectives were to gain a few advantages for the union while giving up as little as possible. The lockout was announced as soon as the 1997-98 season ended, and the pressure tightened as the deadlines passed for a settlement by the start of training camp, the start of the exhibition schedule, the start of the regular season, and finally, the drop-dead date when the season would be canceled altogether. Hunter held firm throughout, until the very end, but in the final few weeks before the impending cancellation of the season the union’s membership wavered, with several members calling for an immediate vote to accept or reject whatever proposal management currently had on the table. Just when it appeared the only two possible conclusions to the matter were the union caving in and accepting whatever deal it could get or the cancellation of the season, Hunter met with league commissioner David Stem in a secret, all-night meeting in league offices in New York and hammered out an agreement.

Some of the key points on which the union won in the settlement involved saving some loopholes in the salary cap rules, especially exceptions which would benefit some of the mid-level salaried players. The owners won out by keeping the percentage of revenues devoted to players’ salaries to 55 percent, imposing for the first time in any sport an individual salary cap to augment the team salary cap, and pushing back the date at which players can become unrestricted free agents to the end of their fifth season. While experts agreed that both sides had won some concessions and given up others, most agreed that the union had given up more than the owners had. Most of the union’s membership just wanted what remained of the season—and that season’s salary—to be salvaged, however, and the union overwhelmingly approved the new contract.

Despite the poor taste the lockout left in many players’ mouths, Hunter’s security as executive director seemed sound a year after the start of the lockout. The union had clearly found the tough negotiator it had been looking for for so long, and a story he told the New York Times he had related to numerous union members during the lockout seemed best to define his resolve. He recalled, “I can remember when I was a young kid, ten or 11 years of age, there were guys in my neighborhood who, if they started something, said something to my relatives, I would always go in there and fight. And many of them I fought because I knew I could beat them. But as soon as they fought me back, and they had demonstrated they were willing to fight—and I wasn’t so sure that it was going to be a slam dunk—then I was more reluctant to fight. And I wanted to find some other way we could reach an accord. I became a negotiator, man. I wanted to befriend them. When I realized they were throwing punches, too, it wasn’t so easy.”