For more than 20 years, Howard Slusher was an enemy of National Football League and National Basketball Association owners, who found his relentless, aggressive style difficult to abide. He was known as “Agent Orange” for his tough tactics on negotiating players’ contracts as well as his red hair. Mr. Slusher, who went on to a second career as a consultant for Nike, died on July 13 at a hospital in Portland, OR. He was 85.

“I have never in my life not negotiated,” Mr. Slusher told Mike Lupica of The Daily News. “I sit and negotiate. I don’t sit and wait.”

In 1978 — long before players made tens of millions of dollars a year — Mr. Slusher laid out the fundamental tension between players and teams. “The owners like the kids but don’t respect them,” he told The Miami News. “The kids don’t like the owners, but they’re in awe of them. They wonder, ‘How did they get to where they could have so much power over my life?’ The kids resent him, but still respect him. Besides, they are worried they could get shuffled off to Buffalo.”