LOVERRO: Jerry Richardson’s story can be instructional for today’s NFL players

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

When Dan Snyder sits in the visiting owner’s box on Sunday in Charlotte when his Washington Redskins face the Carolina Panthers, he will likely have very definitive ideas of how the game is being played — the coaching, the players executing the game plan, all of it, just like any other owner in the National Football League.

Jerry Jones has the same thoughts. So do Arthur Blank, Stephen Ross, Woody Johnson and the rest of the owners who spend their millions to operate a football franchise.

Only one owner, though, can sit in his owner’s box on a Sunday and have an opinion on the game who actually played the NFL’s brand of football.

Panthers owner Jerry Richardson once caught passes from Johnny Unitas, including a touchdown reception in the NFL championship game in 1959 in which the Baltimore Colts team defeated the New York Giants, 31-16.

Richardson’s status is very unique. He is one of just two former NFL players who became franchise owners. The other was George Halas, but when Halas owned the Chicago Bears, it was during the birth of the NFL in the early 1920s, when it cost him a few thousand dollars.

Richardson paid a $140 million expansion fee for the rights to own the new Carolina franchise in 1993. Ironically, one of the few former players who now owns a major-league sports franchise is also in Charlotte — Michael Jordan, the owner of the Charlotte Hornets.

Despite the millions of dollars that athletes make today, it has still been difficult for them to make the jump from the playing field to the owner’s box.

NHL Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux owns the Pittsburgh Penguins, but reports are he is looking to sell. Wayne Gretzky is reportedly seeking an NHL expansion franchise for Seattle, but so far has fallen short of his goal to become a franchise owner. Nolan Ryan was part of an ownership group that purchased the Texas Rangers in 2010, and became the franchise’s chief executive officer, but was later forced out. Magic Johnson is one of the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he doesn’t have any particular controlling interest or powers.

Richardson’s story is an instructive one, though, for today’s NFL players. He once worked for the NFL, and then he took his money and let his time in the NFL work for him.

Now he owns a piece of the NFL, and, last I saw, no NFL owners are being diagnosed with brain damage for counting their money.

Richardson was a 13th-round draft choice out of Wofford in 1958. He played just two years in the league, catching seven passes for 81 yards and three touchdowns in his rookie year in 1959 and eight passes for 90 yards and one touchdown in 1960.

He walked away from the game following the 1960 season, when the Colts refused to meet his $10,000 salary demand and instead offered $9,750.

Richardson had taken his $3,000 championship bonus and invested it with a high school teammate in a Hardee’s franchise in Spartansburg, South Carolina. He built it into a fast food fortune and turned his brief playing time in the league into a seat at the table of NFL power.

It is a story that perhaps should be repeated in NFL locker rooms — the game can present opportunities and open doors. But you have to be able to walk through those doors.

There is life after football — but you have to have something left to enjoy it with.

Jason Campbell recognized that.

The former Redskins quarterback retired in June after nine years in the league, four of them in Washington. He had a good career, throwing 87 touchdown passes and 60 interceptions and completing 1,519 of 2,518 passes.
He is 33 years old and had a chance to get back into football last week when the Indianapolis Colts called him in the wake of the injury to Andrew Luck.

Campbell, appearing on the ESPN 980 radio show I co-host, “The Sports Fix,” said he told the Colts that he’s “kind of enjoying what I’m doing. … You’re playing football for so many years — you’re always gone, you’re always on the road, doing different things, and you never get that time to spend with your family. And you look up, and 10 years have went by.”

Richardson knew when to get out. So did Campbell. Different times, different circumstances — but the lesson is the same. It’s OK to say goodbye, and sometimes, like Richardson, when you come back, you’re the boss.

• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.