<table> </table> Former Chiefs linebacker Willie Lanier wondered why fellow Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw didn&#8217;t return a birthday greeting last week.</p><p>He found out early Thursday morning along with a shocked pro football world.</p><p>Upshaw, the former Oakland Raiders guard who helped NFL players secure free-agency and unprecedented prosperity as executive director of the NFL Players Association since 1983, died of pancreatic cancer late Wednesday night at his home in California. He was 63.</p><p>&#8220;Gene and I were in the 1967 draft class,&#8221; Lanier reflected. &#8220;We&#8217;ve had that relationship. He wore No. 63, as I did. His birthday was on Aug. 15, he was 63. My birthday is today (Thursday). I&#8217;m 63.</p><p>&#8220;I called and left him a birthday message on the 15th &#8230; I never talked to him &#8230;&#8221;</p><p>The news of Upshaw&#8217;s death was stunning. Last month, Chiefs coach Herm Edwards played in a golf outing with Upshaw. Three weeks ago, Upshaw was in Canton, Ohio, for the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductions that included former Chiefs cornerback Emmitt Thomas.</p><p>&#8220;Gene had lost some weight,&#8221; Lanier said, &#8220;and Emmitt asked me, &#8216;Was Gene ill?&#8217; and as far as I knew, he wasn&#8217;t because I had not heard anything. It just looked like he had lost some weight."</p><p>As it turned out, Upshaw was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just last Sunday.</p><p>&#8220;Few people in the history of the National Football League have played the game as well as Gene and then had another career in football with so much positive impact on the structure and competitiveness of the entire league as Gene,&#8221; former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.</p><p>Upshaw and Tagliabue negotiated the most recent collective-bargaining agreement two years ago that gives the players 60 percent of total league revenues and an average salary of nearly $1 million. The deal is so lucrative for the players that the owners recently opted out of the contract, setting the stage for some bitter negotiations between now and 2010 or there will be no salary cap for that season.</p><p>Chiefs guard Brian Waters, the club&#8217;s player representative, said Upshaw has left the players&#8217; association in good hands, and there will be several candidates as successor, including former NFLPA presidents Troy Vincent and Trace Armstrong, NFLPA officer Clark Gaines, and general counsel Richard Berthelsen, who has been appointed as interim director.</p><p>&#8220;Gene had a little bit of foresight, and he had some protocols set in place,&#8221; Waters said. &#8220;He has really groomed everybody on his staff with what his philosophy is. They all understood his vision.&#8221;</p><p>Upshaw spent 15 seasons as a player with the Raiders, who drafted him in the first round in 1967 because of their need to find someone who could block Chiefs defensive tackle Buck Buchanan. A seven-time Pro Bowl selection, Upshaw became the first player to appear in Super Bowls in three decades, the 1960s, &#8217;70s and &#8217;80s, winning two championships. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.</p><p>Upon his retirement in 1981, Upshaw began working for the players&#8217; union, and was at the forefront of the players&#8217; strike in 1982. Chiefs coach Herm Edwards, then a Philadelphia Eagles player representative, remembers sitting at the table with Upshaw at the Warwick Hotel in New York in 1982.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re all talking at that point about wanting &#8216;a piece of the pie,&#8217; for the owners to open the books,&#8221; Edwards recalled, &#8220;and he took off his players association hat, and said, &#8216;I&#8217;m going to do what&#8217;s right for the players. We have to make this a strong union.&#8217; He was right. He did a lot of things to unify the union.