The Facts:
Following up on
the ongoing saga. ... NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith is scheduled to attend the first day of court-ordered mediation between the NFL and the locked-out players. Smith was supposed to speak Thursday as part of Wake Forest University's conference on college sports and race. Organizers for that event said Wednesday that Smith withdrew so he could instead go to Minneapolis for mediation, which also begins Thursday.
Reported by ESPN.com
Fantasy Football Diehards Line:
Smith was formally added last week as an attorney for the players. The NFLPA officially is a trade association and not a union. Attorneys for the NFL met with the federal judge overseeing court-ordered mediation on Wednesday, one day before the first talks between the league and its locked-out players since the middle of last month. Executive vice president Jeff Pash, the NFL's lead negotiator, was in attendance along with other NFL officials and outside counsel. They declined comment before sitting down with U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan. Lawyers for the players met with Boylan for about four hours Tuesday. The two sides are scheduled to be in the same room with Boylan on Thursday, the first face-to-face meetings since the collective bargaining agreement expired March 11, the union was dissolved and the NFL wound up with its first work stoppage since the monthlong strike in 1987.
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