Senior members of the NFL Players Association are considering issuing a call for "a minimum of six members" of the association to give up their football careers and join the military to honor the memory of Pat Tillman, a former football pro killed in Afghanistan last week.

After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Tillman walked away from a multi-million dollar contract at the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army. He became a member of the Army's special forces and died in a firefight in southeast Afghanistan.

"I don't think we'll have any trouble getting six members of the Players Association to step forward and honor Pat and their country in this way," said a member of the NFL Players Association executive committee, who asked that his name not be revealed because "not everyone in the Association is going to think this is a good idea."

The average salary for an NFL player was $1.26 million last year.

"This just feels like something an NFL player would do, to honor Pat and their country and contribute to the war on terror by turning away from money and false glory," the executive committee member said. "You won't see any of baseball's dandies or the basketball trash-talking dudes or the hockey bad boys stepping forward for something like this, giving up their big bucks to follow the patriotic call."

Various press reports put the average National Basketball Association player salary at $4.9 million. National Hockey League players averaged $1.79 million in 2002-03. Major league baseball players average $2.49 million.

The executive committee member said he had considered following in Tillman's shoes, but was told he was too old for the military to be interested in him.

"If I was just a few years younger, I'd be considering it," he said, "although my wife and kids wouldn't like it. Of course, there'd be plenty of 'issues' all around about mortgage payments and ballet lessons for the girls and a new Mercedes for Mamma, but we'd work that all out."

The member of the Players Association executive committee said that he and some other committee members were stung by an overwhelming sentiment expressed by the news media reporting on Tillman's death. One commentator after another suggested that few, if any, professional athletes would be willing to give up a lucrative, celebrity-driven pro sports career like Tillman did to join the war on terror.

"My fellow committee members and I, we all got on a conference call and we said that's just not true," the executive committee member said. "Certainly there are some younger players who would do this, who would see this as their duty, to pay back their country for the wonderful opportunities they have been given by playing pro football.

"We're not all driven by the almighty dollar and people asking us for autographs. There's bound to be six of us out there who will answer this call."

A spokesman for Players, Inc., the licensing and marketing subsidiary of the NFL Players Association, declined to comment directly on the idea of players giving up their careers to join the military.

"Be careful with this," said the spokesman, who also declined to be identified. "There's always a number of half-baked ideas floating around the Executive Committee and this is probably one of them."