Trump jumps on a political football as Big Ten reconsiders its position
Updated Friday, September 4, 2020
LLANO, Texas — Sports is supposed to give us relief from the drudgery of work and the weight of depressing news. Our spirits are lifted by athletic achievement, just as they are by a fine concert or other entertainment. Since my teenage years I’ve gravitated toward the toy department of journalism.
But sports in 2020 has not provided much relief from the worst pandemic in a century and a procession of young Black Americans getting shot full of holes. In fact, the athletes are making it impossible to escape nonsociety’s troubles, as they speak from their platform after every game they play.
Meanwhile we lament the absence of stars afflicted by a coronavirus that has interrupted basketball, baseball and most other sports. And when the sports resume, we get spectacles without spectators. The greatest pageant in America, the Kentucky Derby, which typically attracts 170,000 spectators, will have almost none for Saturday’s 146th running.
We’re also seeing spectacles without games being played. NBA and MLB players refusing to perform, desperately trying to stop white people from taking them for granted. Four years of kneeling at flags got our attention for all the wrong reasons.
My understanding of white people is that we’re fine with protests by other races as long as we don’t have to hear it or see it. Write your congressman. If you must make a display, wear a hat that says Black Lives Matter, or whatever. We like hats.
But for most of us white folks, black lives do not matter as much as the real estate damaged by those who think black lives matter. If we don’t give them what they deserve and want, they’ll burn our cities down. Should we call this Black-mail? Hopefully not.
In Wisconsin a 17-year-old white boy becomes so incensed at the protesting that he kills two people with an assault rifle. He tries to surrender but cops ignore him. Eventually he’s charged with homicide and other crimes. He will be tried as an adult in a country that regards murdering people as a sign of early maturity. Yes, Kyle Rittenhouse is a prodigy. American exceptionalism indeed.
President Trump, whose favored skin colors are white and orange, makes no hasty judgment of a white policeman who grabs Jacob Blake, an unarmed black-skinned man, by his T-shirt and shoots him seven times in the back. “He choked,” the President said, basically equating the overperformance of an armed cop under stress to Russell Westbrook airballing in the final minute of a playoff game.
This week we learned of more choking – cops choking the life out of a mentally disturbed, erratic-acting 41-year-old African American in Rochester. The incident, which the coroner ruled “homicide,” occurred on March 23 but was covered up by police. On Thursday the mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren, announced the suspension of seven cops implicated in Daniel Prude’s death.
So there’s more reason for protests and complaints by NBA players.
“The NBA has become a political organization,” Trump observed. “I don’t think that’s good for sports or for the country.”
Of course it’s good for the country if professional athletes endorse Trump, as Herschel Walker, former Heisman Trophy winner, did at the Re-Election Convention.
It’s also good for the country if Trump can talk the Big Ten into playing football in November after the school presidents followed advice of scientists and voted to delay it until spring. By then, the pandemic curve presumably will flatten some more.
Polling has shown that voters in battleground states – and Big Ten strongholds – Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania – favor playing college football as soon as possible. Trump sees himself as a savior for them. And perhaps they for him.
Showing again how deftly he – and he alone – can blend politics with sports, Trump called the Big Ten commissioner, Kevin Warren, and persuaded him to back away from the spring football pledge and consider scheduling games in late November.
Will Covid be a problem? Of course not. Trump expects a vaccine by then. Not waiting for the proverbial October Surprise, he delivered it early, telling the states to be ready to distribute the coming vaccine in November.
The scientists are not as optimistic as Trump. They never are. We’ll see if the Big Ten leaves the science camp and joins Trump’s.
The political battles will continue in legislatures and basketball courts and others. Mayor Warren said she expects to be sued by the Rochester police union but that she’s not giving in.
Bill Plaschke of The Los Angeles Times reported that the California legislature “is about to pass a police reform bill that’s going to be watered down because the police unions got to them. Those wealthy and influential NBA owners need to get to Sacramento and get this done.”
J.A. Adande suggested on ESPN’s Around the Horn that white people’s taxes could be reduced if cities can avoid lawsuits for wrongful deaths and other miscarriages of justice: “Chicago budgeted $123 million in 2020 for payoffs for police misconduct.”
The players are not asking for anything that harms us. I say give them justice, wear facemasks, pay attention to the scientists and see if we can get back to sports as we had them.
