Howard Slusher

The World Athletics Championships were held in 2022 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., the recently renovated facility that Howard Slusher played a pivotal role in transforming into a world-class complex in 2020, at the behest of his longtime colleague Phil Knight. Slusher passed away on July 13,2022 as the event was about to begin. While his passing did not receive widespread national attention in the sports world, his legacy is significant, and his contributions to the sports business should not be forgotten.

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Before there was Leigh Steinberg, Tom Condon, Scott Boras, Arn Tellem, or Rich Paul, there was Howard Slusher. For over 20 years, Slusher was an adversary to National Football League and National Basketball Association owners, who found his relentless and aggressive style hard to endure. Known as “Agent Orange” for both his tough tactics and red hair, Slusher became a formidable figure in the sports world.

“My preference, given our experience, is not to do business with him,” Art Modell, the longtime owner of the Cleveland Browns, told The New York Times in 1983.

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Howard truly changed the world of athlete representation and player empowerment through “creating” the hold out and giving players an equal footing with owners.  Throughout his years as an agent, no one was more feared by owners and loved by their clients as Howard.  The fact that many of his earliest clients - including Paul Westphal, Sam Bam Cunningham, Dan Fouts, Lynn Swann, Tom Skladany and Mike Haynes - were also his closest and best friends is a testament to his as an amazing agent and friend and the love his clients had for him - and him for them.

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Pat Bowlen, the former owner of the Denver Broncos, once distributed buttons that read, “Flush the Slush.” Two former NFL general managers, George Young of the New York Giants and Phil Krueger of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, even labeled him a “terrorist.”

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“To Howard, that was a compliment,” Dan Fouts, the Hall of Fame quarterback of the San Diego Chargers, said in a phone interview. “He was just matching terror with terror.” Fouts, who was one of Slusher’s clients, held out for half of the 1977 season under Slusher’s advisement.

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Howard was larger than life as both a person and a negotiator, eliciting mixed opinions from those he encountered—first as a hard-nosed player agent and later as a decisive right-hand man to Phil Knight. Slusher was loved by his clients but never won popularity among team owners. A 1985 People magazine profile by Jack Friedman captures his unique style and substance: “So poisonous is his reputation among some of America’s wealthiest sports-franchise holders that the unyielding L.A. attorney is almost better known by his pseudonym, Agent Orange.”

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In 1984, when negotiating a new contract for Randy White, the future Hall of Fame defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys, Slusher advised him to hold out and stay away from the team until his demands were met—a common tactic in Slusher’s playbook. He also told White to go fishing and avoid the phone. “I knew he couldn’t stand up to the pressure of the negotiation,” Slusher was quoted as saying in the People profile. “I knew Tex Schramm, the Dallas general manager, would call Randy, saying, ‘Son, Howard’s an outsider. Let’s settle this Cowboy to Cowboy.’”

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After more than a month of fishing, White secured a deal worth over $4 million over five years—more than double what he would have received in the option year of his expiring contract—and returned to Cowboys training camp.

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In an article announcing his passing, The Oregonian noted, “Those who faced off with him found him relentless, leading in some cases to lingering resentment and, in others, begrudging respect.” Slusher was a complex figure, with both supporters and detractors. He maintained a low profile and did not seek the spotlight. A reporter once approached Slusher’s son, John, a prominent executive vice president of global sports marketing at Nike, for help with a profile on his father for a Champions of Sports Business program. After a pause, John responded with a knowing look and said, “Ah, why would he ever want to do that?”—a testament to Slusher’s penchant for privacy.

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Nike historian Scott Reames, who worked in Beaverton for almost 30 years, wrote, “Howard had a well-earned reputation for being a tough negotiator, but there was also a softer, even mischievous side to him. He had a very wry sense of humor and was very quick with a quip and a wink. He was also a stickler for details… When he asked me to write a few dozen thumbnail descriptions of athletes and coaches who were being added to the Walk of Fame on the Nike campus, he’d send back not only edits but also quibble with specific punctuation. There was one instance where we argued back and forth on email for hours over a semicolon vs. a comma, and he would not back down. I knew AP Style, but I also knew I was never going to win, so comma be damned.”

Slusher’s second career as a consultant for Nike was marked by significant achievements. He passed away on July 13 at a hospital in Portland, Ore., at the age of 85.

In an email to staff shortly after Slusher’s death, Phil Knight encapsulated the essence of his friend: “He was, above all else, a negotiator. He loved the mental battle of it, a debate with meaningful results. And he turned negotiating into an art form. I met him when Rob Strasser and I were negotiating for a renewal of Paul Westphal’s Nike shoe endorsement. By 11 a.m. we had agreed on a dollar amount, after which I said, ‘Do you want to go to an early lunch?’ To which he responded, ‘What I’d really like to do is sit around and see if I can get another $5,000 out of you guys.’ I said, ‘But we already have a deal.’ He said, ‘I know, but let me try.’ And an hour later he walked out with $5,000 more. After he left, I said to Rob, ‘Hire him.’ … It has been a great run, old friend, and I will miss you.”

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One of Slusher’s lasting legacies is Hayward Field, which Knight called “the project that meant the very most to him. … He worked very hard to make it special.” During the World Athletics Championships on July 16, Slusher was honored, and John Slusher told The Oregonian that the tribute brought him and his family to tears. “For those of us that he loved, there was nothing that he wouldn’t do for us,” he said. “I think that’s how he would want to be remembered.”