Athletes and sports leagues continue to lecture people about politics despite knowing nothing about the issues they are demanding be fixed. In the process, they are tarnishing their own events and achievements.
Legendary Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski recently ranted about gun control, offering nothing of substance and showing he is absolutely clueless about the issue. Coach K said of shootings, “That’s not right. That’s not right. That’s not right. I mean, it’s amazingly wrong. It’s amazingly wrong. And you should be ashamed of yourself if you are in a position of power.”
Along with that profound insight, he said, “And we can go into the guns. Like, you need an automatic weapon? You got to be kidding me. You got to be kidding me. It’s disgusting.”
Krzyzewski, who attended West Point and served in the U.S. Army, is apparently completely clueless about the difference between semi-automatic guns, such as AR-15s and most handguns, and automatic weapons, which have been severely restricted since the 1930s. Krzyzewski retired earlier this year and will be remembered as one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. He apparently also wants to be remembered by half of the country as a terribly uneducated political pundit.
The same is true for Gregg Popovich, the legendary NBA coach who has turned into little more than a cranky old hypocrite whose team has missed the playoffs for three years in a row. Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, and Golden State Warriors have mired the last weeks of the NBA playoffs in gun control lectures. Last year’s NBA playoffs were refreshingly politics-free after the 2020 postseason was drowned in Black Lives Matter talking points. Now, the NBA Finals are being drowned in gun control.
The political infection extends to soccer as well. The story of the U.S. men’s national team should be one of redemption after the team inexplicably failed to make the World Cup in 2018. With the 2022 World Cup looming, the team instead wants to use its platform to push gun control, sending a letter to Congress demanding that politicians pass Democratic gun control bills that would do nothing to stop the shootings they claim to be so concerned about.
Falling in line with the Democratic Party has ruined several sports events and the public perception of many athletes. Major League Baseball tarred its 2021 All-Star Weekend by boycotting Atlanta at the urging of President Joe Biden. Basketball’s LeBron James has made himself the face of uneducated celebrity punditry. The NFL has seen its ratings drop in the seasons it put politics at the forefront, and even NASCAR is now swerving onto political narratives at every turn.
Athletes, teams, and leagues are presenting themselves as political actors during their biggest sports events. Even if they were offering passable political punditry, they would be infecting their playoffs with and tying their legacies to partisan politics. But their political rants and performative protests are embarrassingly empty and misinformed. Their reputations would be better off if they stuck to what they were good at.
