On the one hand there seems to be too much at stake in the world — Mexico’s earthquake, Puerto Rico’s recovery, and the North Korean missile crisis — to worry about what a bunch of wealthy pro-football players are doing. But it does matter because football is a vital part of America, like apple pie and baseball. It’s a pastime that’s not only a billion-dollar industry — the average yearly salary is $2.1 million — but it’s also revered: More Americans watched one game, Super Bowl XLIX, than voted in the last election.
The actions of NFL players won’t turn the entire tide of the American collective, but they, like Hollywood, politicians, and the media, boast some influence on the psyche of American minds.
Unfortunately, as in any industry, there are heroes, and there are whiners. This weekend, we saw both.
The NFL was already, in my opinion, on a slippery slope to Professional Spoiled Player Land when a few players requested their own month as “activist month.” ESPN reported, “A group of four players sent the NFL a memo in August requesting league support and asking for a month to be dedicated to social activism, not long after commissioner Roger Goodell reportedly had talked to several players regarding their game-day activism efforts.”
Pardon if it doesn’t sound absurd that a group of professional sports players, some of whom make tens of millions of dollars per year, would like to activate themselves one month out of the year. What kind of social justice issues? What’s precluding them from getting involved in their community, families, homes, churches, businesses where they live, work, and practice? It’s not enough for the NFL to take up several hours on a television screen or in a stadium every Sunday — now they want a whole month to complain and parlay that into media attention. At least that’s how it sounds.
The real debacle began of course after President Trump, in a speech last week, angrily called out NFL players who sit or kneel during the national anthem. He continued to mention it on social media over the weekend.
Of course it’s incredibly petty for the president to call out private citizens, or really even to care about what the NFL is doing. I could see one comment, but the ongoing monologue seems overdone and dramatic.
Still, while the league of course can technically do what it wants, it’s obvious why this is a story: The NFL, famous football players, and their Sunday afternoon games capture the attention of the public. Why shouldn’t they set a responsible tone and respect their country? What does sitting out do, save for create a media whirlwind?
At the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Chicago Bears game over the weekend, the Bears linked arms in solidarity, on the sidelines, while the anthem played. The entire Steelers team, however, hung back in the locker room during the anthem, save for one player: West Point graduate and former Army Ranger Alejandro Villanueva, who stood out front with his hand over his heart.
To add insult to injury, it sounds like Villanueva’s team and coach, or at least one sportswriter, didn’t care for his personal right to honor his country’s anthem:
Villanueva didn’t follow that tenet on Sunday, undercutting his coach and his teammates. Had another player stepped out front on his own to kneel just outside the tunnel, he would have been excoriated for leaving the pack and acting on his own.
For what it’s worth, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, told me “American citizens have the right to protest” in response to my question about it.
The hero here is not Trump, who picked a fight with the NFL in the middle of a crisis with North Korea; the hero here is not the Steelers team, who stood in their locker room like pouty toddlers while their country’s anthem played.
The hero here is Villaneuva, who served three tours in Afghanistan, then joined a football team, and doesn’t care how his president disses him, or how his team turns their back on the president and their anthem — but stands alone, hand over heart, honoring a country he served.
Ironically, the Steelers head coach, Mike Tomlin, seems to almost get it.
To be quite honest with you, I didn’t appreciate our football team being [dragged] into politics this weekend and I’m sure that that’s a global perspective. But we’re blessed to do this for a living, with that blessing comes responsibility, we understand that. We understand we’re given a platform that’s a unique one, many of us are called to do things we wouldn’t normally do because of that platform, where people apply pressure for us to do things because of that platform and the bottom line is we chose not to play ball today in that regard. Maybe we will, but today we just said no.
So Tomlin admits the team and the NFL have a great platform and are blessed to make millions playing sports, yet they chose to use that platform by refusing to stand publicly as the national anthem is played.
How is that any better than what Trump tweeted? If they wanted to be “bigger” about it, joining Villanueva would have done that. They don’t have to agree with what their president says about them to show respect for their country — in fact, they basically demonstrated the point Trump was making all along.
Shame on the NFL for using their blessed platform to look like whiny, spoiled toddlers rather than grown men who appreciate the fact that they live in a free country that allows them to disrespect their anthem when and where they choose on a whim.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.
