Jets’ Wheeler speaks out about protests
Jets star says it’s time for all pro athletes to fight for fundamental human rights
“Daddy, why won’t he get off his neck? Why won’t he get off his neck?”
That’s what seven-year-old Louie Wheeler was wondering as he watched the moment that pushed a global pandemic off the front pages.
His father, watching with his wife and kids, says coming up with an answer is one of the harder things he’s ever had to do.
“They watched George Floyd die on TV,” Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler said on Tuesday. “So that’s been really challenging, trying to explain, especially to Louie (the oldest of three). To try to explain to a seven-year-old that the police that he feels are out there to protect us and look out for us, that that’s not always the case — that’s a hard conversation to have.”
Wheeler, at his off-season home in Florida, was speaking on a conference call, the vast majority of it spent talking about the protests that have ravaged cities across the U.S. since.
“Clearly, it’s hit home,” Wheeler said. “Never did I envision that Minneapolis-st. Paul, my hometown, would be the epicentre of these things happening. I have a lot of family there, obviously. My wife has a lot of family there. We have a lot of friends there. People are scared.
“Getting pictures from our family of businesses being boarded up where I’m from, which is 20 minutes outside of Minneapolis, it’s crazy. It’s really tough.”
Lauding the vast majority of the protesters as peaceful, Wheeler said he wished he and his family could be in the Twin Cities, taking part, allowing his kids, Louie, Leni and Mase, to experience the power of people coming together for a common cause.
For now he’ll climb up on the platform he does have as a professional athlete and speak out about an issue that’s always been front and centre, even it hit home only a week ago.
“We have to be as involved in this as black athletes. It can’t just be their fight,” he said. “And I want to be real clear, here. I look in the mirror about this before I look out at everyone else. I wish that I was more involved sooner than I was. I wish that it didn’t take me this long to get behind it in a meaningful way. But I guess what you can do is try to be better going forward.”
Wheeler heard loud and clear the call from Evander Kane, an old teammate he didn’t always get along with, that white athletes need to join the cause for there to be change.
“I think he did a phenomenal job,” Wheeler said. “And to be completely honest with you, he was on this even when I played with him. He was saying these things when I played with him. So I really applaud him for the work and the job he’s done kind of being the voice of this movement, especially in our sport.
“As pro athletes, we have a platform. We need to be OK voicing our opinion on this.”
Even if it’s uncomfortable.
Even if it goes against the hockey culture of speaking out about almost anything. Even if it draws a social media backlash, the “stick to sports” mantra of the narrow-minded.
Absorbing the online hate doesn’t come easily for Wheeler. He says he wishes he didn’t care as much about what people think of him. And when you wade into American politics, well, you may as well be sending out invitations for hate mail.
“I strongly feel that this has nothing to do with politics,”
Wheeler said. “You can vote for whoever you want. But these are human rights, fundamentally. There should be Republicans who are on board with this, Democrats — we should all agree on this.”
Wheeler hasn’t been shy about gliding into the political corners.
A few years back he challenged U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticism of NFL players who were kneeling in protest of police brutality of African-americans.
More recently he challenged Trump on gun control, in the wake of yet another school shooting.
On Tuesday he said Trump’s aggressive handling of protesters in Washington the night before “just pours gas on the fire.”
It’s a fire he’s worried will consume his country. But he’s optimistic better days are coming. He has to be.
Two days ago, Wheeler received a text from his dad, who grew up in Detroit.
Jim Wheeler was telling him about the race riots there in the 1960s.
“My generation didn’t get it right and hopefully yours does,” Wheeler recalled his father saying.
It’ll probably take his kids’ generation, too.
If this is a turning point, they’ll look back at two horrific events that combined to spark it.
One was a cellphone video from the streets of their dad’s hometown, showing a man having the life squeezed out of him by a police officer.
The other was a global pandemic that shoved it in our faces and gave us time to really watch. And feel. And think.
“You read about it and you hear about it and you know it’s injustice and you know how horrible it is, but then once you see it, it puts it in a new light,” Wheeler said.
“We’re not preparing for a game tomorrow, our minds don’t go elsewhere right now. We’re able to really digest this.
“You can’t be silent anymore.”