San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Examining the intersection of politics and athletics.
In wave of change, athletes speak up after Kaepernick knelt, Trump poked
Gabe Kapler and the Giants quickly learned about this year’s explosive blend of sports and politics.
On Opening Night, Kapler became the first manager to take a knee for the national anthem. Moments earlier, pitcher Sam Coonrod chose not to kneel during a moment of silence for Black Lives Matter, the only member of the Giants or Dodgers to do so.
Kapler credits the “difficult conversations” that followed as helping to keep his clubhouse unified in the face of divergent views — an essential skill for a manager or coach in 2020, the year that redefined the sports world’s relationship with politics.
“The choice to kneel or not kneel, to protest or not protest, can be a very individual decision,” Kapler said in a recent interview with The Chronicle. “We talk to our players about this: As important as whether you kneel or not is what you say. That message can carry.”
The prevailing message is one of social justice and racial equality, and the chorus of athletes promoting it has never been louder, the images never more prevalent: NBA and WNBA games unfolded with “Black Lives Matter” prominently
painted on the courts. NFL players and coaches locked arms in unity. Major league baseball players, like their basketball and football counterparts, implored people to vote. Teams across five leagues protested the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin by refusing to play.
More than 50 years after Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised blackgloved fists at the Mexico City Olympics — and four years after the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem to call attention to racial injustice — athletes’ political involvement has reached a tipping point.
The combustible mix of President Trump’s reelection campaign and social upheaval over excessive use of police force in Black communities brought new urgency to athletes’ advocacy for change. This has posed both a challenge and an opportunity for teams as they discuss issues and take actions that in the past might have been off limits.
“We can’t just stick to sports,” A’s second baseman Tony Kemp said. “The issues going on in America right now can’t be ignored.”
Some fans bristle at politics interrupting their leisurely sports experience; for longtime viewers, the two realms rarely commingled for most of their lives. It still counts as an uncomfortable topic for some athletes to discuss publicly, which might explain why more than a dozen players, including Coonrod, declined or did not respond to interview requests for this story.
Former Warriors guard Shaun Livingston recalled few political conversations when he entered the NBA in 2004. He traced the change to Kaepernick’s decision to kneel in 2016 and Trump’s subsequent criticism, which grew into calling NFL players who protest “sons of bitches” a year later.
“You’re the president of the United States, and now you’re engaging NFL and NBA players,” Livingston said. Warriors forward Draymond Green went a step further.
“When you have a guy like Donald Trump leading the country, you’re not creating division in an NBA locker room by talking politics,” Green said. “You’re bringing guys together. He’s already created enough division.”
When Kapler knelt July 23, it was not an impromptu decision. He said he called former African American teammates to seek their counsel about the best way to “make an impact to support the Black community.”
Coonrod based his decision to not take a knee that night on his Christian faith and also disparaged what he believes to be some tenets of Black Lives Matter, including “how they lean toward Marxism and said some negative things about the nuclear family.”
Kapler, whose parents were activists in the 1960s and ’ 70s, initiated conversations with Coonrod to better understand his perspective.
“My view of Sam as a baseball player is completely independent of the fact we don’t have the same political views, we don’t have the same views on social justice issues, we don’t believe similarly about systemic racism in the U. S.,” Kapler said. “We can still coexist harmoniously in the clubhouse and on the field.”
The Giants held many clubhouse discussions throughout the season, according to Kapler — small groups and large groups, players and staff, players only, Kapler and the front office. Those conversations intensified Aug. 26 before their game against the Dodgers.
Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts and manager Dave Roberts lobbied to postpone and join the swelling wave of walkouts across sports. Giants players were split. Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, speaking the next day, called them “hard conversations.”
Kapler insisted those talks, and ultimately the decision to not play, did not divide his team.
“The difficult conversations are more plentiful, because it’s necessary for them to be had,” Kapler said. “Players are capable of separating political differences in the clubhouse and on the field. That’s always been the case.”
But some athletes think this new forum for voicing views welcomes only liberals.
Former A’s pitcher Mark Mulder, an unabashed conservative, sees how sports and politics make for an uneasy blend, especially if an athlete’s views diverge with popular opinion in the area where he or she plays. Many of Mulder’s 52,000plus Twitter followers live in the leftleaning Bay Area — and he hears from them nearly every time he tweets.
“It’s amazing — you’re just fullon attacked for having an opinion,” said Mulder, whose recent retweets include posts criticizing Gov. Gavin Newsom and downplaying COVID19. “They cuss at you and say, ‘ You used to be one of my favorite players.’ Just because I have a different opinion?
“If I say anything, then I’m racist. It’s just exhausting, to be honest with you.”
Mulder recalled no political debates in the clubhouse during his time in the majors, with the A’s ( 200004) and Cardinals ( 200508). He knows times have changed, but he doesn’t agree with how some athletes are using their platform.
“Gang violence, kids shooting kids, people shooting up a home — I don’t hear some of these athletes speaking up about that. I feel like their voices would go so much farther on those topics,” Mulder said.
Arik Armstead — the 49ers defensive end who has been outspoken about social justice issues, including inequities in the education system — spent two seasons ( 201516) as Kaepernick’s teammate. The quarterback’s peaceful protest became a flashpoint in the political reawakening of athletes, in Armstead’s mind, and planted the seed for what’s happening now.
It also prompted a flurry of unexpected conversations in the 49ers’ locker room, typically not a place to break down society’s problems. Kaepernick spoke to the entire team to explain his position, Armstead said, and also talked to teammates individually.
“Not everybody understood it at first, and some people had different opinions,” Armstead said. “But having those conversations, and gaining understanding of people with different experiences, was important. Kap had a big impact on me.”
Another unmistakable factor in the rising engagement of African American athletes is former President Barack Obama. He left office in January 2017, only a few months after Kaepernick began kneeling. In August, when NBA players walked out to protest the Blake shooting and then contemplated leaving their Orlando bubble, Thunder guard Chris Paul and Lakers forward LeBron James called Obama. He encouraged them to keep playing, and use the platform basketball provided to highlight racial injustice.
Green described it as “empowering” for Black athletes to have an ally and adviser in Obama.
“He understands things differently than any other president in the history of America, simply because he is Black,” Green said. “So to call someone like that goes a long way. Then you step away from making an emotional decision and make an educated decision.”
One tangible result from the Blake protests is sports venues turning into voting centers for Tuesday’s election. The Warriors, A’s, 49ers and Sharks are among the franchises participating.
Stanford women’s basketball head coach Tara VanDerveer spent most of the spring and summer connecting to her players through Zoom calls. VanDerveer tried to expand the dialogue beyond the frustration of pandemic restrictions, especially as social justice issues commanded the nation’s attention.
So she arranged a parade of guest speakers, including LaDoris Cordell, a retired Santa Clara County Superior Court judge and former auditor of the
San Jose police force. Cordell spoke to Stanford’s team in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, the Black man killed when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Cordell’s reflections on her experience — she was Northern California’s first female African American judge — sparked spirited conversations among the players. The talks became emotional and cathartic, to hear VanDerveer, though she recognized the risk.
“If you have really extreme views on your team, that can cause conflict,” she said. “I’ve heard about it on other teams. Politics can be divisive and affect team dynamics and chemistry. … But our kids continued the conversation and really talked about how they felt.”
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, similarly, routinely invites guest speakers to address issues larger than sports. In September, during the Warriors’ twoweek minicamp, civil rights lawyer Brian Stevenson spoke to players on a video call. Another session was designed to educate players on the various propositions on this year’s ballot.
Before most practices, Kerr also opens the floor for discussions of current events. He traced this habit to his time as a player under Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich, two coaches known for their interests beyond basketball.
“I’ve always felt discussing current events was something that helped bring a team together and put things in perspective,” Kerr said. “Everything just has a little more of political bent now.”
These sessions offer a striking contrast to the way many pro sports teams previously avoided the issues. Or consider Kemp of the A’s: He was told as a kid not to talk about politics, given their sensitive nature.
Now he’s eager to start the dialogue through the + 1 Effect, a campaign he founded to stimulate conversations about race. Kemp insisted majorleague teammates will “still have each other’s backs” if differences of opinion arise, as they inevitably do.
The A’s also waded into these turbulent waters after the Blake shooting. Oakland players held a group discussion — in which Kemp spoke — and ultimately postponed their Aug. 27 game against the Rangers and Aug. 28 game against the Astros.
“We didn’t want to step on any toes,” Kemp said, “but at the end of the day, you have to do what’s right.”