Yes, I’m chiming in on something sports related. And something political. But, being me, I’m doing it a couple of days
late since the biggest arguments over this were over the weekend. But I have thoughts swirling in my head that
I need to get out. Warning, this will be
long and will go back a few years.
Normally, I don’t follow sports, but I have started to enjoy
football. I’ll take any football game,
but it is more background noise; I have it on while doing other things and
often even have the sound down. I joined
a fantasy football league with some friends, including several former
roommates.
I blame this softening to my roommate Daniel. He’s a huge football fan. Back when he was my roommate, Tim Tebow was
the quarterback for Florida. (See, I
couldn’t tell you which college or university in Florida it was. I’m still not a diehard sports fan.) It was his senior year, and he’d go on to win
the Heisman Trophy. Then he’d be drafted
to the Denver Broncos as their backup quarterback. When Peyton Manning got injured, Tebow
managed to lead the team to some playoff victories before the team was eliminated.
However, Daniel, who was a fan of Tebow in college and a Broncos
fan, didn’t think Tebow made a good NFL quarterback.
And then Tebow became controversial for kneeling. After his team scored a touchdown, he’d
briefly kneel on his own on the sidelines while the rest of the game was going
on to give thanks to God. The man had
always been under scrutiny for being an outspoken Christian, and this just
brought things to a boil. There were
calls for him to be fired.
Tebow was eventually traded and then cut from his new
team. However, Daniel’s perspective that
Tebow was having a hard time making the transition to NFL quarterback kept
playing in my mind. Could the
controversy surrounding him have helped with him losing his NFO job? Sure.
But I submit that if he’d been winning games, he’d be a starting
quarterback somewhere.
Fast forward a few years.
I join the fantasy football league with Daniel and some other
friends. Being the Northern California
native I am, I snag Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers as my
quarterback. And I didn’t win a game all
year. Now, I’m not blaming it all on
him, but I had a front row seat to his performance as a quarterback. He’s okay, but not all that great. Lesson learned, I let auto draft help me in
the future.
But I kept an eye on the 49ers as they continued to struggle.
Then Kaepernick started his protests last year. It started with him sitting on the bench
during the anthem, only kneeling when his lack of standing was called out. And he became controversial. And yet, he never became a great quarterback.
The calls for his firing started from some of the same
people who had been defending Tebow. And
those who called for Tebow to be fired were defending Kaepernick. And I watched the 49ers lose games under his
leadership.
And here is where I feel sorry for the NFL as a whole. Kaepernick was let go from the 49ers. And immediately, people started to call for
the NFL to be boycotted. Could the
controversy surrounding him have had something to do with his being let
go? Yes.
But I guarantee you that if Kaepernick were winning games and leading
his team to the play offs consistently, he would still be a professional
quarterback.
You’ll notice I said the exact same thing Kaepernick and
Tebow. While they were controversial in
their own ways, they weren’t playing at levels that justified having them on
teams. If they were, they would still
have jobs. It’s as simple as that.
Yet, people were calling for the NFL to be boycotted this
fall because Kaepernick lost his job.
Sorry, but if you aren’t good at your job, you will lose it. That applies to sports just as much as the
rest of life.
This is when those defending Kaepernick cited the First
Amendment and his freedom of speech. He
absolutely does have freedom of speech, but let’s look at the First Amendment
again. “Congress shall make no
law….” It says nothing about a private
company. And it says nothing about a job
when you aren’t very good at your job.
Of course, freedom of speech issues seem to be everywhere these
days. People are defending it or trying
to take it away from others. Yes, riots
against a speaker are trying to take away someone’s freedom of speech. You can disagree, but they still have the
freedom to speak even if you disagree with them.
So I do support his right to speak, and he has a platform to
speak. I happen to disagree with what he
is saying. Remember, this started
because of his support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The statistics don’t back up the movement. Not to say that the perception
doesn’t mean anything, but when we look at facts, this movement started from
the news media blowing something out of proportion and then fed into
perceptions. Instead of trying to get to
solutions, we started having protests.
But Kaepernick still has the right to speak up on this
whether I disagree with him or not.
I am bothered by the means he chose to do so, however. As an American, the flag and the National
Anthem mean something to me. I try to
show them respect, although I probably fail at times. The flag stands for Kaepernick’s right to speak
his mind on any topic he wants, for one thing.
And it is clear in our society that we get that flags stand for
something. Over the summer, we’ve had
how many discussion on what the Confederate flag stands for and what statues
stand for. Those who want statues taken
down say that his taking a knee isn’t a huge insult and those who defend the
statues are the most offended.
My feelings on the flag and the anthem were solidified back
in the 90’s by Adventures in Odyssey.
For those not familiar with it, this is a radio drama done by Focus on
the Family, so it is conservative in bent for sure. They invented some ways for the kids in
modern time to go back and experience history, both Biblical and American. (They were imagination enhancing computer
programs, but they were really just plot devises.) This particular episode sent two kids back to
the battle during the War of 1812 when Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star
Spangled Banner.” They are by his side
during the long night when the British are shelling the fort, and they watch
for the flag to still be flying, meaning that the fort has not surrendered to
the British. It really showed me just
how powerful a symbol the flag is.
Last year, one of the highlights of my day as a tourist in
Washington DC was seeing the flag that inspired the song in the
Smithsonian. Thinking again about the
story and where the American flag has flown over the years moved me to tears.
So, while I support Kaepernick’s right to speak his mind, I
was off put by his actions. And,
frankly, I am a little surprised that the NFL didn’t step in last year. After all, they threatened to fine players on
the Dallas Cowboys who wanted to honor Dallas police officers who had been shot
in the line of duty by a sniper. And
they refused to let players honor the victims of 9/11 on Sunday, September 11,
2016. So why they couldn’t have told
Kaepernick to find another way to make his point is beyond me. And if you are upsetting the people you are
trying to reach with your message, maybe you should find another way to speak
your mind that will help build a bridge.
Flash forward to this weekend. I missed what started the entire controversy
this particular weekend, but I certainly heard about Trump’s tweet calling for
the NFL to fire any player who refused to stand for the anthem. Now, while I find kneeling for the anthem to
be disrespectful, let’s go back and look at how the First Amendment begins
again. “Congress shall make no
law….” Okay, if we want to split hairs,
Trump is the President and wasn’t making a law.
But the meaning of the First Amendment is clear, and Trump
overstepped. Period. End of discussion.
So, honestly, I was left feeling unsettled this
weekend. I find the practice of kneeling
disrespectful since it is our country’s tradition to stand at attention. (Ironically, at other times kneeling show
great respect, like kneeling before a king.)
The way the practice has been growing over the last few weeks in other
sports and even in kids’ leagues is bothering me. Yet, I can understand why players felt
compelled to do it this weekend to stand up to Trump.
Of course, then there’s the Steeler’s player, a former Army
Ranger, who did stand and was made to feel so foolish that he apologized today
for letting his team down. He shouldn’t
have had to do that. It was his choice,
and he should have been allowed to make it.
And to answer another comment I saw, the people in the stands booing the
players that were kneeling wasn’t racist.
It was their free speech back to the players showing their free
speech. It’s not perfect by any means,
but it is part of living in a free society.
But this entire weekend has saddened me yet again. I saw so many knee jerk responses with very
little time for anyone to think things through.
I’ve probably gone overboard with this post (which is currently just
over 1500 words), but there is a lot of complexity and hypocrisy on both sides.
I’m also thinking about an observation my brother made in
his sermon this Sunday about how easy it is to get people to protest things
today, but how hard it is to get people to actually do something productive to
make a difference. I honestly feel like
this entire issue, which has been building for the last year, is the perfect example. Nothing has truly come of this but bad
feelings and calls for boycotts (which we do at the drop of a hat).
And lost in all of this is any effort to try to see the
other side or try to get along. Everyone
knows they are right, and posts things that only inflame those they disagree
with while reinforcing the belief on their side that they are right. If we want to find a way to get along again
as a country, we need to stop talking in memes and think. Listen to each other. Think about this story in the context of
other stories that have happened in the last year. 5 years.
10 years. No we can’t solve
everything in one day, but at this point, I don’t think that the majority of
the country is even trying.
And that saddens me most of all.
As does the fact that something that could be used to bring
us together and help us relax and forget about politics for a while is now a
political football.
