It should go without saying that it’s more heroic to enlist in the U.S. Army in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks than it is to become an internet celebrity with a multimillion-dollar advertising contract. Yet, for some reason, it still must be said.
Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre has now compared the years-long soap opera of Colin Kaepernick’s unemployment to the sacrifice of the late NFL player Pat Tillman. “I can only think of, right off the top of my head, Pat Tillman’s another guy who did something similar, and we regard him as a hero,” Favre said. “So I’d assume that hero status will be stamped with Kaepernick as well.”
This comparison is flatly ridiculous. Tillman gave up a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to become an Army Ranger, saying after 9/11, “At times like this you stop and think about just how good we have it, what kind of system we live in, and the freedoms we are allowed. A lot of my family has gone and fought in wars, and I really haven’t done a damn thing.”
He served in Iraq and Afghanistan until he was killed by a friendly fire incident in 2004.
By now, most everyone knows the Kaepernick story. He was a mediocre quarterback by the time he started his protests, starting the 2016 season as the San Francisco 49ers backup and finishing an unremarkable losing season by opting out of his contract with the team.
To his horror, he found that no NFL team wanted to sign a middling quarterback with major media baggage. At that point, Kaepernick sued the league. He was then gifted a multimillion-dollar contract by Nike, including his own branded apparel line. Now he spends his time saying stupid things, like the police must be abolished and terrorist Gen. Qassem Soleimani was the victim of U.S. imperialism.
In six years in the NFL, Kaepernick’s $43 million in earnings easily dwarfs that of the $3 million that Tillman turned down. Kaepernick did what was popular and mostly easy — certainly easier for him than achieving excellence on the field. He turned a career as a second-tier backup quarterback into massive wealth and celebrity, which he will be around to enjoy for many years. Tillman, in contrast, died serving his country overseas.
Kaepernick sacrificed nothing to become a caricature of a social justice influencer, complaining about “the system” in sophomoric terms while getting paid millions by a company that has a history of exploiting sweatshop labor, including connections to a Chinese factory known to use the labor of interned Uighur Muslims.
So no, Kaepernick is not a “hero” by any definition that values the word. And his supposed sacrifice does not belong in the same sentence as someone of Tillman’s caliber.
