In the NFL, He’s Agent in Charge

He has never thrown, caught or intercepted a pass, blocked a punt, kicked a field goal, made a tackle, recovered a fumble, laid a block or drawn a play on a blackboard. But he probably has as much input in the National Football League as anyone who ever did.

When you think of an agent in sports, what comes to mind is a fast-talking, high-living, let’s-do-lunch guy, probably in gold chains, maybe a fur coat, a guy with an instinct for the economic jugular, the modern equivalent of the snake-oil merchant, part fight manager, part faro dealer, dedicated to the proposition that talent is often distributed in inverse proportion to brains.

They’re very often loud, assertive, aggressive, not very likable people who look as if they would make noise eating soup. They come into focus with a phone in their ear, a secretary on their lap or a cigar in their mouth.

And then there’s Leigh Steinberg. He’s so preppie you find yourself looking around for Ali MacGraw. He looks a little bit like the way you’d imagine Percy Bysshe Shelley looked. The tousled hair, the pale brow, the gray-green eyes--you figure he’s going to burst into an ode to a skylark or a daffodil any minute.

But he’s more apt to start dreamily talking about $11 million for his client for four years. Incentive clauses. Guaranteed contracts.

Leigh Steinberg, the boy agent, has shredded more NFL defenses than Earl Campbell and O.J. Simpson on their best days. Only he does it with a fountain pen, not a football.

He didn’t set out to be an agent. He was a law student at Berkeley, student body president, when the resident campus hero, the Cal quarterback, Steve Bartkowski, was negotiating with the Atlanta Falcons. He asked Steinberg, who was studying contract law, to look over his shoulder at the bargaining.

“Very nice,� Steinberg was reported as saying. “But tell me, are you paying them or are they paying you?�

Startled, Bartkowski allowed as how he was the payee.

“In that case, let’s look this over,� Steinberg said, rolling up his sleeves.

And another pro football legend was launched.

When you talk of quarterbacks in pro football, you talk of John Unitas. When you talk of wide receivers, Cliff Branch. Linebackers are Dick Butkus. But agents are Leigh Steinberg.

He got Bartkowski the largest contract any rookie had gotten up to that time in the NFL. At one point last year, eight of the starting 26 quarterbacks in the league were Steinberg’s clients. He represents 50 pro players in all, as well as 30 broadcasting talents, figure skaters, one professional soccer player and 20 baseball players, among them San Francisco’s Will Clark.

His methods succeed, he believes, because his merchandise is quality.

“I don’t take a client until I have retraced his roots, questioned his colleagues, checked out his character and satisfied myself he has good, sound, fundamental values and I am offering a quality person,� he says.

Steinberg boasts that he has never had a client who tried to force renegotiation of his contract.

“I tell them I don’t do renegotiations,� he says, “unless the team initiates it. If (the athletes) want to renegotiate, I tell them to get someone else.�

He is insistent that his clients not be one-dimensional athletes--or anchormen.

“You owe something to the community which made you,� he says. “We all do. If the athlete tells me he doesn’t want to be a role model, I tell him, ‘In that case, I don’t think you should. Why don’t you just play sandlot football the rest of your career and you won’t have any obligations to anyone?’ �

His clients are notorious for giving back to the community. Steve Young, quarterback at San Francisco, gave $138,000 to his school, BYU. Will Clark contributes to the United Way for every hit he makes. Rolf Benirschke used to donate to the San Diego Zoo for every field goal he kicked. Gaston Green of the Rams kicked in with funds for his old high school, Gardena, as did Duane Bickett, Indianapolis Colt linebacker from Glendale, and Troy Aikman, who set up funds for his old high school at Henryetta, Okla., and UCLA.

They can afford it. Steinberg got Aikman $11.037 million for six years, a record for a guy who had yet to throw a pass in the pros. That’s more money this year than Jim Kelly or Dan Marino will get, and almost as much as Joe Montana.

But that’s not the best Steinberg has done. He got Steve Young a $42-million deal with the old L.A. Express, a tab the defunct United States Football League is still paying off. He got Wade Wilson, a $250,000 quarterback at Minnesota last season, a $4.4-million four-year contract.

He likes to think he relies less on leverage and table-pounding threats than sweet reason. During negotiations for New England quarterback Tony Eason, who played only sporadically in two years, the Patriots’ owner, Victor Kiam, asked Steinberg: “If you had an employee who had a nervous breakdown and hadn’t been able to show up for work half the time in the past two years, would you even pay him?�

Steinberg answered: “Mr. Kiam, this employee didn’t get hurt on a skateboard in his driveway. This employee got hurt playing with reckless abandon for the New England Patriots. Now, if you had an employee who was digging a ditch for you and it caved in and injured him seriously, wouldn’t you be obligated to pay him when he came back?�

Eason got a raise.

Steinberg reads defenses as well as anybody in the league. As one GM who dealt with him put it: “He’s the No. 1 pick among agents. He can go long, he can go short. He sets you up for the run--and passes. And vice versa. And he’s never been sacked.�