San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
For Cuban and Meyer, the market will decide
Urban Meyer discovered the limits of his own authority this week. In his own way, Mark Cuban did, too.
Their lessons came from what might have looked like opposite ends of the political spectrum, but in reality they both had to backtrack because of the same reason.
It wasn’t “cancel culture.” It wasn’t political correctness. It wasn’t patriotism, or a lack thereof.
It was business.
Neither Meyer nor Cuban is the sort of man accustomed to answering to others. One rose to prominence in college football while flouting the notion that his recruiting choices or hiring practices were anybody else’s concern. The other made a habit of challenging just about every convention in the NBA owners’ unwritten rule book.
So when both made headlines for recent decisions almost none of their peers would have had the audacity to seriously consider, it didn’t come as a surprise.
No other coach in the NFL would have tried to hire a “director of sports performance” who’d lost his previous job amid multiple allegations that he’d made racist and bullying remarks to former players. Meyer, less than a month into his gig as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, tried it anyway.
No other owner in the NBA, recognizing the inevitable blowback, would have had the temerity to scrap the tradition of playing the national anthem before games, even in mostly empty arenas. But Cuban did, and once people finally did, the blowback was predictable.
By Friday, Meyer and Cuban both had to change course, but not because either of them had an epiphany about anything other than their own power.
Meyer accepted Chris Doyle’s “resignation” because a wave of public criticism was bad for his franchise’s bottom line. Cuban started playing the anthem at Dallas Mavericks games again because commissioner Adam Silver reached a similar conclu
sion about the finances of the NBA.
And when the usual fire-breathing suspects were quick to lament how social justice interests had prevented one successful man from doing his job the way he saw fit? It was funny how those same fire-breathers had no problem with another successful man being held in similar check.
As it turns out, it’s a lot more fun for some to blame “snowflakes” than it is to blame the free market.
There also are those who say the NBA chickened out with its edict that all teams must continue to play the anthem, and they aren’t entirely wrong about that.
Few things are quite so paradoxical as mandatory patriotism, and “The Star-Spangled Banner” has about as little to do with a midweek Mavericks-Pelicans game as it does with a Friday night showing of a Tom Cruise movie at the local cineplex. For some reason, the crowd at AMC isn’t asked to stand, remove its hats and honor America before the coming attractions.
But somewhere along the line the anthem became inextricable from sports, and politicians have been more than eager to pounce on this. Wednesday, when news of Cuban’s decision began to spread, Texas Lt. Gov.
Dan Patrick issued a statement touting a bill that would require the anthem to be played before all events in the state that receive public funding.
Shortly thereafter, an intrepid Associated Press reporter compiled a list of recent publicly funded events in Texas. They included the International Jugglers Association convention, the John Deere Parts Expo, the US Quidditch Cup, and the Herbalife Nutrition Extravaganza.
Presumably, each of those functions will now begin with, “O say, can you see.”
Just as the outrage about anthem-related protests often is disingenuous, so too was the NBA’s response this week. Silver surely understands why Cuban chose to scrap it, and why a significant chunk of his players and fan base have conflicting feelings about the tradition.
But he also understands that the league’s TV ratings have been up this season, and that fans might soon be coming to arenas in larger numbers, and that this might not be the time to entertain another controversy.
So Cuban was overruled, just as Meyer was. Officially, Doyle quit his job in Jacksonville, but there was no way he could keep it with public outcry growing to include a strong statement from the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an organization of scouts, coaches and front-office personnel devoted to diversity in the NFL.
Doyle, the former college strength coach whose conduct prompted an investigation into his alleged mistreatment of numerous players, was not “canceled.” Meyer, who has had a long history of sticking up for players and employees of questionable repute, finally came to realize that his organization was better off without Doyle than with him.
And if people have a problem with that? If they say Meyer should be allowed to run his program the way he wants, and to offend whomever he wishes, and that nobody else’s opinion should matter?
Ask them if Cuban should have the same luxury.