Legends share McCain memories
Sen. John McCain once stood in opposition to a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. He later said he had been wrong.
That 35-year-old vote isn’t what we should remember about him.
He was a man who used his influence to try to improve the world as he saw fit, something we all should emulate.
“His legacy was about service to
others,” Arizona Cardinals President Michael Bidwill said. “His legacy was about integrity and being selfless, and I think that’s the lesson that we should all take from him. And I think that’s the greatest gift that we could give to Sen. McCain, is to try to make the world a better place, whether it’s right in your own backyard, in your neighborhood, in the community, in the country, in the world, and that’s what he did. He dedicated his life to public service.”
Bidwill was attending a charity event, Fitz’s Supper Club, which hoped to raise about $250,000 to support various charities, including a youth center, an eye doctor that serves low-income kids and the fight against breast cancer.
It’s a centerpiece event for Cardinals star Larry Fitzgerald, who learned the value of service to others first from his parents.
“When I was 9, 10 years old and all the rest of the kids in the neighborhood were shooting ball and playing in the park, we were passing out fliers and trying to help people get mammograms and HIV and AIDS tests,” he said. “I feel like God has blessed me with a lot.”
The knowledge encourages him to give back.
Fitzgerald will be speaking at McCain’s memorial service Thursday. Luis Gonzalez will be there, too. “It’s an incredible honor to be chosen by Sen. McCain as a pallbearer,” the former Diamondbacks star said.
Gonzalez said McCain was “a tough son of a gun, and that’s why guys like Fitz and myself and Shane Doan and all of us, we loved the guy, because he was brutally honest. There was no tiptoeing around. There were times when he used to come here and say, ‘Aw, that guy, you should kill this guy’ or ‘He’s pitching against you? You guys shouldn’t have problems’ or he’d tell you a guy was slumping, and ‘What’s the matter with him?’”
Doan, another pallbearer, has similar sentiments. The former Coyotes star remembers McCain as a man who would do or say something unpopular if he thought it was right.
“That was kind of his character quite often,” Doan said. He mentioned a health care vote, saying, “I think it was as much to do with, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta stop worrying about which side we’re on, and let’s just do what’s right.’ He gave a speech about sticking along party lines, and he’s like, ‘Hey, we do owe an element of respect to our party because that’s who we’re representing, but we represent the people more. And we need to make sure that the party isn’t getting ahead of the people.’ That takes a lot of guts to say that.”
Some of “the people” McCain stood up for were fighters.
He helped reform boxing through the Muhammad Ali Act, which made financial disclosures more transparent, among other things. It improved a fighter’s ability to negotiate a fair payday.
He also sparred against mixed martial arts. Today, UFC President Dana White credits McCain for the growth in his sport.
McCain once called MMA “human cockfighting,” and his opposition in 1996 helped trigger a series of reforms that made the sport safer for fighters. The changes included weight classes and a ban on tournaments that required combatants to fight several times a night.
“Sen. John McCain had a huge impact, obviously on boxing, and was a total game-changer when it came to the UFC. Had he not gone after the UFC when he did, it probably wouldn’t be the sport it is today,” White said in a statement texted to azcentral sports.
For me, it’ll come down to 2008, when the “birther” movement was challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship. I worked in hard news in those days and kept close attention on politics.
McCain shut down a woman who didn’t believe Obama was an American.
“He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues,” he said at the time. “And that’s what this campaign is all about.”
These examples are how we should remember McCain.
We can admit mistakes.
We can serve others to improve the world as we see fit.
We can speak plainly and honestly. We can do what’s right even when it’s not popular.
We can disagree without vilifying each other.
And we can do it all while rooting for the home team.
Rest in peace, Senator.