Professor Player is well regarded in academia, both as an educator and an author. He was dean of Santa Clara University School of Law from 1994 to 2003, and served as a law professor until his retirement. He also was Director of Santa Clara Law’s Center for Global Law and Policy from 2005-2008. Player is well published, primarily in the area of employment law.

Prior to joining the Santa Clara University School of Law faculty, Player taught at the University of Georgia for 19 years, as well as Florida State University, where he served as the associate dean and co-director of the Florida Dispute Resolution Center. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia,  the University of Hawaii, the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), and the University of Vienna (Austria). His past experience in the field includes serving as an appellate attorney in the U.S. Department of Labor, starting in 1970, and as a scholar-in-residence at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1986-87. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Floyd R. Gibson of the United States Court of Appeals after graduating from law school.