Once upon a time, sports were an escape. All that mattered were the results on the field and how we got to that final score. The personal lives and politics of players, no matter how despicable, were not topics to be covered on the sports pages. Readers turned to the sports pages to forget about the lurking dangers in our communities, the stresses of everyday life, the tensions between nations.
Sports as escape is a quaint notion that has gone the way of Cowboys and Indians, the Macarena, and drive-in movies. Scandals, peccadillos, crime, substance abuses are as likely to be found on the sports pages as they are to be found in the “serious” news sections.
The latest intrusion was this weekend’s anthem controversy conflated from smoldering embers to an inferno of public opinion by Donald Trump. Who would have thought, even a week ago, that fans anticipating the weekend NFL games would be discussing what teams will be doing for the national anthem side-by-side with point spreads and fantasy teams?
At the Eagles game on Sunday, the teams chose to lock arms with teammates, and, in the Eagles case, with their owner, front office personnel and the police standing on the sideline, as a sign of unity. Other teams either didn’t come out of the locker room until after the anthem, raised fists or knelt, as 27 players did in London, England. Meanwhile, fans at the Linc cheered at “the rockets red glare” when the fireworks went off from the roof of the Linc. Nobody around us was singing along and nobody was linking arms. Just another game day.
Two of the Eagles who have been consistently demonstrating during the anthem, Malcolm Jenkins and Chris Long, have put their money where their convictions are, donating heavily to causes associated with racial issues. Owner Jeffrey Lurie supported his players but also dissed Colin Kaepernick. At least he’s not one of the holier-than-thou owners who get all red-faced about their players respecting the flag. See Jerry Jones.
The NFL is hyper-patriotic, if they can make money from it. How about those patriotic in-game Hometown Hero promotions–that the military paid for? Yesterday, the networks televised the anthems, because they knew people were tuning in to check out the controversy. Usually, the performance of the anthem is ignored by TV. To the NFL it is another three minutes of advertising.
The mainstream media is pouncing to grab ratings. A Friends with Fox segment was posted by a Facebook friend. It featured Kevin Jackson who, within the first 30 seconds, claimed that the players were “protesting the National Anthem”. Not quite correct. I believe they are making a statement about unequal treatment, not about the anthem. He commented on the link between the Star Spangled Banner and athletics “since the beginning of sports”. Not quite correct.
The linkage began accidentally in 1918, when a military band, common sights and sounds at baseball games then, played the anthem during the seventh inning. According to ESPN’s website:
Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas was playing the Series while on furlough from the Navy, where he’d been learning seamanship at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Chicago…..Upon hearing the opening notes of Key’s song from the military band, Thomas immediately faced the flag and snapped to attention with a military salute. The other players on the field followed suit, in “civilian” fashion, meaning they stood and put their right hands over their hearts. The crowd, already standing, showed its first real signs of life all day, joining in a spontaneous sing-along, haltingly at first, then finishing with flair. The scene made such an impression that The New York Times opened its recap of the game not with a description of the action on the field but with an account of the impromptu singing: “First the song was taken up by a few, then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field. It was at the very end that the onlookers exploded into thunderous applause and rent the air with a cheer that marked the highest point of the day’s enthusiasm.”
Ownership had the band play the anthem for the next game, and by the third game, attendance had increased. Coincidentally no doubt, The Red Sox ratcheted up the pageantry when the Series relocated to Boston for the next three games. At Fenway Park, “The Star-Spangled Banner” moved from the seventh-inning stretch to the pregame festivities.
And this was 10 years BEFORE Congress officially adopted the Anthem.
Fox’s Jackson went on to decry today’s “social justice warriors.” We need to “become patriots again.” He also stated that Lebron James could not tell you the name of any shooting victims in Cleveland and “he does not care.” I could go on with the analysis, but basically, Jackson is telling the Fox audience what he knows they want to hear, just like Trump told his audience in Alabama what they wanted to hear while insulting mothers, really: “sons of BITCHES.” I hope Alabama’s pro teams…wait, what pro teams are in Alabama?
My Facebook and Twitter have ranged from “Unfriend me if you support these spoiled f***ing players” to “I was in the military and I support the kneelers” with many permutations in between. What is most disconcerting is people cherry-picking “facts” and/or suppositions about the protests and players, or like Jackson, making the protest about patriotism. Some are shunning the NFL and trumpeting the “purity” of college football.
Please. The big conferences are tripping over each other trying to get TV money, using 18 to 21-year-olds to enrich whom? When the highest paid public employees in most states is a college football coach, something is terribly wrong. Especially in less prosperous states like—-Alabama! ranked as one of the five poorest states in income. ‘Bama coach Nick Saban is making over $11 million this year. At least college football has ITS priorities in order. Uh huh.
It is, of course, unpatriotic also to not accept an invitation to the White House (oh, the irony just keeps on coming). Stephen Curry, North Carolina are spoiled elites. At least the patriotic Penguins with a mostly white and non-American roster who play a “non-American” sport, accepted a White House invitation. Oh Syd can you see.
The Q-View 