Take a knee, grab a buck, shut up and dribble? Why nobody in sports should ‘stick to sports’ – San Francisco Chronicle
It might seem like the protesters in sports are losing.
Colin Kaepernick still doesn’t have an NFL job, not even a sniff, and his recent tryout with the Raiders might have been a sham.
The LIV golf tour, financed by Saudi Arabia in a classic case of sportswashing, seems to be doing just fine. LIV is scooping up cash-crazed PGA Tour players left and right, and certainly will not go broke.
World sports bodies are excluding Russian athletes from major events, yet Russia’s relentless attack on Ukraine continues.
The Warriors’ Steve Kerr, the Giants’ Gabe Kapler and other leaders continue to take strong, public stands on gun-safety laws, and yet our country, with gun-totin’ support from the Supreme Court, is starting to feel like Tombstone 1881 — if Wyatt Earp and the boys had been packing military assault weapons.
Most big-league teams now support LGBTQ+ rights, at least on the surface, yet those rights are being systematically chiseled away.
And so on.
Lost causes? Are these protesters just spinning their wheels? Or worse, creating harmful blowback, damaging the causes they seek to promote?
Here’s some free advice to the noisemakers from this corner: Please don’t give up.
Please do not shut up and dribble.
For sure, there is much room for cynicism and discouragement. A sportswriter friend recently tweeted a photo of cool Pride gear being sold at the Atlanta Braves’ stadium souvenir shop.
Another sportswriter tweeted back, “Do they sell tomahawks in Pride colors?”
There is a growing suspicion that many pro teams see the Pride movement as a cash cow, so they show support on the surface, while quietly funding the opposition. The San Francisco Giants have led the way in American sports in showing support for Pride and LGBTQ+ causes, but the team’s majority owner donates heavily to powerful candidates opposed to gay rights.
The A’s sell Pride caps, too, and owner John Fisher is a major donor to conservative candidates who oppose gay rights, gun-safety issues and other annoyances.
Those same politicians, supported in grand style by those team owners, and others, also oppose women’s reproductive freedom, gender equality and other women’s rights. Last week, the Supreme Court struck a blow against all of those things, spoiling the 50th anniversary of Title IX.
Prayer has become an issue, as in one case in which it verges on mandatory. This week, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a high school football coach in Washington state to kneel in prayer at midfield after each game, counter to school district rules.
The school district wasn’t telling the coach not to pray, simply telling him to not make it a public display, where players might feel compelled to participate at the risk of losing favor with their coach. Was the Supreme Court backing religious freedom or knocking down the wall between church and state?
“Excited to see what happens when the coach is Muslim,” tweeted noted sports author Jeff Pearlman.
Wimbledon has started this week, and Russian and Belarusian players are banned. That shuts out men’s world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev and women’s No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka.
So Wimbledon is taking its lumps from some in media and social media. Novak Djokovic called the ban “crazy,” which certifies that the ban is not crazy.
It’s terrible to punish athletes who have no say in their country’s politics, but it’s even more terrible not to use every tool available to discredit and undermine a ruthless government that took using sports as a political tool to an entirely new and unpleasant level.
It gets complicated. Chinese athletes are not banned from Wimbledon, where 11 Chinese players will step onto the hallowed grass, even though one of China’s lesser sins against humanity is the continuing sequestration of tennis player Peng Shuai, who crossed the government by accusing a high official of sexual misconduct.
Everyone’s in bed with China, in spite of the country’s concentration camps and widespread squashing of human rights. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently defended his league’s deep business ties with China, noting that most Fortune 500 companies do biz with China.
It’s a relationship that will keep the NBA tiptoeing forever. It’s an awkward dance — your partner is beautiful, but carries a bag full of nitroglycerine, and the tempo of the dance music keeps increasing.
Everything seems hopeless and futile for those in sports who are fighting for positive change, but some stuff is working.
Kerr and Kapler have advanced from speaking in favor of gun-safety laws, to helping bankroll the effort. They lend their support to fundraising, and if there’s anything in America that makes more noise than an AR-15 in an enclosed classroom, it’s money.
In Georgia, where many political/social fights are being waged, Charles Barkley, Stephen Curry and the WNBA and NBA have helped change public opinions and laws, and made an impact in elections.
Kaepernick probably will not get a quarterbacking job, but he brought energy to a movement, and provides leadership and role modeling. Though Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and others remind us that money is more important than anything else in the world, Kaepernick and others provide a strong counterargument.
Civil rights leaders refer to “the struggle,” and the reason they do that is because it is a struggle. Quick payoffs are not going to happen. Pushback is inevitable.
But please don’t give up, you strugglers. Keep kneeling, squealing, squawking, talking, walking the walk and leading the way. Speak up and dribble.
Scott Ostler is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler