Woodson leads the Pack.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports

There is a proud tradition in this country of athletes using their platform to say something about the greater good. Those who pine for the days of Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King often bash today's heroes for not measuring up. But people forget that those jocks for justice had the benefit of mass struggle taking place off the playing field.

Now we have seen the rebirth of mass struggle in Madison, Wisconsin, and with it a return of athletes having their say. The Green Bay Packers--the only nonprofit, fan-owned team in the NFL--won the Super Bowl just a few short weeks before the state's governor, Scott Walker, declared war on Wisconsin's working families. The Packers, the closest thing the state has to an official religion, were not silent.

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The fact that the Packers--and all NFL players--were engaged in their own bitter labor struggle with the league's owners was not lost on a team whose very name speaks to its industrial roots.

Current players Brady Poppinga and Jason Spitz and former Packers Curtis Fuller, Chris Jacke, Charles Jordan, Bob Long, and Steve Okoniewski first issued the following statement:

We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great. As a publicly owned team, we wouldn't have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans. It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses, and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work. The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together, it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards.

None of these players has a particularly high profile. But...