So most people here know I’m working on a book about the USFL, and a few minutes ago I got off the phone with Kit Lathrop, a two-time all-league standout.
Kit now works as a coach with the Toronto Argonauts, and he couldn’t have been more wonderful. We spoke for about 45 minutes, on this and that and that and this. Toward the end, I asked why his USFL career was so productive, his NFL career so ordinary. “You know,” he said, “a few years ago someone compiled a list of the worst 100 players in NFL history. The guy was a lawyer, I think. And I was on it. And I wrote him a letter and I told him that I appreciated being on the list, especially considering when I was with Kansas City it was after nine knee surgeries, and I had to fight just to be healthy enough to play, and … I wrote to him, ‘But thanks for including me. That’s really nice of you.'”
I couldn’t agree more with Kit. We mock guys without really knowing the background story. And I told him such. Surely it was some dumb list compiled by some moron.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know. It was on Deadspin.”
We hung up.
I Googled.
I gulped.
Fuck.
