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RESPECTED WRITER AXED FOR CALLING OUT NFL

By Julio Rodriguez

Decorated author and NFL journalist Jim Trotter was fired by the NFL Media group for speaking truth to power one too many times.

Trotter, the former Sports Illustrated NFL writer and San Diego Union-Tribune football columnist, challenged NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on the lack of diversity in the NFL Newsroom at the State of the League address prior to the Super Bowl. It was the second consecutive year Trotter had raised the issue.

In March Trotter was informed that his contract was not being renewed.

“Some personal news: This will be my final week with the NFL Media Group.” Trotter tweeted. “I was informed over the weekend that my contract is not being renewed. I thank NFL Network and NFL.com for the lessons learned and affirmed over the last five years.”

Trotter asked Goodell about the lack of Black professionals in senior positions and full time news desk positions within NFL Media. Goodells’ response was rather vague, as he tried to deflect responsibility and make the case the diversity has improved in The League.

“Jim, I am not in charge of the newsroom,” Goodell said. “We did go back, and we have reviewed everything across the league to vendors that we’re working with, to partners that we’re working with, to ownership, where we’ve seen significant changes in diversity just this year.”

Goodell was referring to the hiring of new Houston Texans Head Coach Demeco Ryans and new Tennessee Titans General Manager Ran Carthon.

In an interview with Peter King of “Football Morning in America,” Trotter said he declined a severance package that would include three months pay because the NFL wanted him to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Trotter has left the NFL with dignity and class, but my not go quietly.

His issues are not money, he said, but underrepresentation of Black journalists and communications professionals in a league that makes billions of dollars off the labors of Black Americans. He has consistently exposed the NFL’s shortcomings related to race and hiring practices.

The NFL and three of its teams currently face a lawsuit from former Miami Dolphins Head Coach Brian Flores which claims the league is guilty of racist hiring practices.

Trotter graduated from Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington D.C. He was the first in his family to attend college. He has held positions at the Muskegon Chronicle in Michigan and the Morning News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington. In 1989 he moved to San Diego to work at the U-T as an East County prep writer. During his 18-years at the U-T he worked his way up to the Chargers beat writer position, then as an expert NFL columnist. He was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated who frequently wrote its cover stories. He worked briefly at ESPN before being hired away by NFL Media.

He has written two books about former Chargers superstar linebacker Junior Seau, which led him to investigate Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the ailment that stems from repeated blows to the head. CTE brain damage is considered to be the cause of Seau’s shocking suicide in May 2012.

Trotter is an active member of the San Diego Association of Black Journalists and 2020 Grand Marshal of the Bonitafest. He has visited Southwestern College on several occasions to mentor students at “Pro for a Day” with the SDABJ. His workshops draw swarms of aspiring sportswriters.

Trotter’s legal options remain open, though he has declined to answer questions about litigation.

Here is hoping he goes for it.

The NFL has improved its diversity practices, but has a long, long way to go. Football has a team of slick lawyers, but they would face a formidable opponent in Trotter, a brilliant man in his own right who knows a lot of things the NFL is likely not proud of. Trotter, like Harry Belafonte and John Lewis, knows that principle always outweighs issues.

And he is never afraid to lose a job to make a point.

Jim Trotter Photo Courtesy of ESPN

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