PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bill Bergey, a five-time Pro Bowl linebacker who played in a Super Bowl for the Philadelphia Eagles, died Wednesday, the team announced. He was 79.
His son, Jake, posted on social media that Bergey died of cancer. Bergey, a three-time Eagles team MVP in a vote of his teammates, had been open about his fight with the disease over the last few years.
Bergey, who was inducted into the Eagles Hall of Fame in 2009, said he had a form of jaw cancer since 2021.
“I didn’t give it the old, ‘Why me?’ or anything like that,” he said in 2003. “I just thought that I had to fight it just like I would fight anything else that I needed to fight.”
Bergey was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in 1969 and made one Pro Bowl appearance for them before he was traded ahead of the 1974 season. Bergey’s career took off in Philadelphia and he became one of the more popular Eagles players in his era. He made the Pro Bowl in 1974, 1976, 1977 and 1978 and was named an All-Pro for the 1974 and 1975 seasons.
“I’ve always had a love affair with the fans of Philadelphia,” Bergey said in 2023. “I have always been kind and courteous to them all the way up that ladder of success that I had because, you won’t believe it, but I’ve met the same people coming back down off that ladder.”
Team owner Jeffrey Lurie said Bergey “gained the respect of players and coaches across the league for his blue-collar work ethic and hard-nosed play.”
“Bill exemplified what it meant to be an Eagle in every way, and proudly represented the team in the community well after his playing days were over,” Lurie said in a statement.
Bergey, who had 27 career interceptions, highlighted by five in 1974, was one of 60 nominees that the Pro Football Hall of Fame seniors committee considered this fall. He failed to advance to the next round.
His last season was 1980 under coach Dick Vermeil when the Eagles lost to the Oakland Raiders. Bergey, who played college ball at Arkansas State, played in all 16 games but he retired because of a lingering knee injury.
“I always had a sense that we were moving in the right direction,” Bergey said in 2015. “Even in the early years (under Vermeil) when the wins were few and far between, we could see the intensity of the play picking up. Dick’s personality rubbed off on us.”
Bergey served in various roles on Eagles radio broadcasts after he retired.
“Number 66 was one of the greatest players of all time,” longtime Eagles announcer Merrill Reese wrote on social media. “Nobody ever loved his family, friends, and Eagles fans more. May Bubba rest in peace.”
Bergey, who recorded nearly 1,200 tackles in seven seasons with the Eagles, was born Feb. 9, 1945, in South Dayton, New York.
Bergey was a plaintiff in the concussion-related lawsuit against the NFL.
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FILE - Philadelphia Eagles linebacker BIll Bergey (66) consoles Minnesota Vikings quarterback Tommy Kramer (9) as Eagles coach Dick Vermeil gets a happy victory ride after the Eagles beat the Vikings 31-16 in the NFC playoff game in Philadelphia, on Jan. 5, 1981. (AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy, File)
FILE - Former Philadelphia Eagles player Bill Bergey signs autographs for fans at the Eagles' NFL football training camp, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2015, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
BANGKOK (AP) — A spokesperson for Chinese automaker BYD has objected to reports about poor conditions at a construction site in Brazil where it is building a factory, saying the allegations were aimed at “smearing” China and Chinese brands.
Earlier in the week, a task force led by Brazilian prosecutors said it had rescued 163 Chinese nationals it said were working in “slavery-like” conditions at the site. A video from the Labor Prosecutor’s Office of dorms housing the workers showed beds with no mattresses and rudimentary cooking facilities.
A BYD spokesperson, Li Yunfei, vehemently objected in a statement posted Thursday on his Weibo social media site.
“In the matter of smearing Chinese brands, smearing China, and attempting to undermine the friendship between China and Brazil, we have seen how relevant foreign forces maliciously associate and deliberately smear,” it said, also criticizing media reports about the situation.
BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, is one of the world’s largest producers of electric cars. The company said on Monday night that it would “immediately terminate the contract” with a contractor building the factory, the Jinjiang Group, and was “studying other appropriate measures.”
BYD said that the Jinjiang workers would be housed in nearby hotels for the time being, and would not suffer from the decision to stop work at the site. The company said that over the past few weeks it had been changing working conditions at the construction site and had told its contractors that “adjustments” had to be made.
Li's Weibo post also included what it said was a “declaration” from the Chinese workers at the site, imprinted with red thumbprints of the men, who were shown in a video sitting together in a room.
The video showed one of workers reading out a statement saying the reports of the poor and “slave-like” conditions had violated their human rights and that the problems were the result of misunderstandings.
“We cherish this work and want to stay and work here,” he said. When he finished, the workers applauded.
Prosecutors said the sanitary situation at BYD’s site was especially bad, with only one toilet for every 31 workers, forcing them to wake up at 4 a.m. to line up to be ready to leave for work at 5:30 a.m.
Under Brazilian law, slavery-like conditions are characterized by submission to forced labor or exhausting working hours, subjection to degrading working conditions and restriction of the worker’s freedom of movement.
Apart from living conditions for the workers, Brazilian officials said Jinjiang Construction Brazil had confiscated their passports and withheld 60% of their wages. Those who quit would be forced to pay the company for their airfare from China, and for their return ticket, the labor office said in a statement.
The workers’ statement said the passports had been taken to allow the company to process work permits and other procedures that they could not manage on their own due to language difficulties.
Jinjiang Construction Brazil said in a statement that it had been “frequently and intensively inspected by the local labor department in Brazil.”
It said that due to cultural differences, problems with translation and understanding, “much of the information released by the labor department was inaccurate, especially statements saying the Jinjiang workers were ‘enslaved’ and ‘rescued,’ which is completely inconsistent with the facts.”
It said its workers were willing to speak with media about the situation.
Living conditions for migrant construction workers can be quite spartan in many parts of the developing world, and such labor often involves contracts that require workers to pay back large sums of money used to secure the jobs, despite laws prohibiting such arrangements.
AP researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report.
FILE - The BYD logo is photographed at the Paris Auto Show in Paris, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
FILE - A model poses near the BYD Song L EV car during Auto China 2024 held in Beijing, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)
