"Shut Up and Dribble" - Accountability in Modern Sports

Chi Tran

WTE123

Professor Natasha Zaretsky

“Shut Up and Dribble”: Accountability in the Politics of Sports

My father and I argue plenty, especially on political matters: He leans more conservative, while I am more liberal. I have become desensitized to these arguments, to the point that I accept him showing sympathy for Trump's presidential loss. We do not talk much on the matter if we do not argue, but there is a 2-hour period every week when the arguments stop, and the talks start; it is when the soccer club Manchester United play.

Such is the power of sports.

Sports are easily seen as apolitical: its purpose is to provide entertainment at weekends, not dinner-table arguments. It is also just as easy to view athletes solely as vessels of entertainment, detached from human issues and preserved in predisposed molds audiences built for them.

However, in today's world, the line between entertainment and politics has blurred, as a recent video from Youtube channel Vox made clear: in recent years, news media (CNN in particular) have covered sports and politics under the same terms, favoring opinionated sources rather than impartial reporting. With impressionable children being given more access to the Internet and increasingly at risk of becoming radicalized by subjective media outlets, it is imperative that accessible sources of inspiration and guidance are provided in their formulating years. Those figures, to me, have always been athletes, who serve as a flexible transition point for many between the escapism of sports and the complicated issues of real-life. But therein lies the athletes' quandary: is it their responsibility to “shut up and dribble", or is it playing to represent something bigger than themselves? To see whether they could and should, we must examine how athletes have changed the rigid molds we have long held them in, and determine if we, as mere spectators and admirers, should have the power to determine the athletes' legacies. If so, should their legacies be determined as how impactful they were to the sports world, or their cultural footprint on society as a whole? It is the dynamic between power, consequences, and legacies that is the driving force of what I feel, as a sports fan, warrants a closer look.

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“Shut up and dribble'' is a common phrase used to suppress an athlete's voice, telling them to essentially “focus on your job”. This did not mean they could not voice their statements by being an exemplary professional: one of the earliest examples of athletes choosing to “let their game do the talking" was Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball's first Black player. In Time Magazine's stirring piece “Why Jackie Robinson’s Legacy Matters Today,” readers are given an insight into Robinson's life as a player-activist. Robinson's story, as McMahon and Burns signified, has always been fitted into a white savior narrative and overshadowed by his landmark hiring, rather than for his true, complicated self: “In focusing almost exclusively on the Robinson who ‘turned the other cheek,’ we’ve denied him his voice and shaped a safer and simpler narrative that reveals our greater comfort with an unthreatening, muzzled pioneer who needed the helping hand of well-meaning whites.” In viewing Robinson as the model minority, the MLB fan bases created a perverse perception of the silenced Black population, making an inspirational figure the target of bigotry from Jim Crow leanings in the news media. Robinson did not fight for equality because he was a baseball player; instead, he became a baseball player so that his voice could magnify that of an oppressed race, which had been his goal long before he took up batting practice in Brooklyn: “Robinson spoke out against the injustice he saw... refusing to sit in the segregated section at the movie theater or leave a Woolworths lunch counter until he was served…” However, this outspokenness did not fit Robinson's MLB beginning: athletes then were truly apolitical, no less for the first Black baseball player ever.

To succeed and provide for his family, Robinson silenced himself, portrayed a stoic role model and a sign of hope for Black people and children, instead of being a public advocate for equality:

“...a man of considerable character who, though strong-willed and defiant, would care enough about succeeding that he would, for a time, suppress his natural impulse to fight back—and during his first few seasons, Robinson mostly did.” When he did become an outspoken activist in his later years, his lack of national exposure lessened his impact with the youths. As we view his legacy today, Robinson is still “the first Black baseball player,” but only a select few could recall what he actually did aside from the hiring itself; by silencing his voice, Robinson inadvertently resided in the pre-existing social structure of inequality rather than establishing a new one.

Jackie Robinson will always be "The first Black baseball player"

Power and consequences are interconnected in the world of sports, and here will be examined through the aforementioned “pre-existing social structure" of sports teams, which contains three levels of interests: the owners, who hold monetary power; the fans, who invest love and passion into their teams; and the athletes, the bearers of their owners' investments and the fans' beliefs. It is an unspoken rule that for a sports team to succeed, all three aspects would form a cycle: the owners invest in the athletes, who play well enough to inspire hope for the fans, who in turn would increase in size and buy merchandise, benefitting the owners. But when athletes have grown from entertainment harbingers to voices for their communities and representatives of a bigger picture, so too must the owners and the fans grow in a similar capacity: they can no longer take a player at face value and overlook the players' off-sports affiliations or calls for change anymore. Whether they are willing to embrace that change, however, is a complex matter.

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For athletes, embracing change is a gradual, almost cognitive, process: by being personally involved in the inner-workings of athletics, their attitudes will synthesize and sympathise, as the athletes all comprehend the unspoken struggles and hold a sense of companionship; it is akin to how a child view sports as raceless, taking the athletes on performance merits rather than appearances. The “adults'' in this equation, then, are owners and fans, who in contrast embrace change at face value when it comes to sports, and perhaps are more entitled than they are allowed to be: they feel that by investing in their players, they can wield whatever power they want over the athletes, even to their athletes' direct interests. One example of this became publicized when football team Miami Dolphins finished the 2019 season second-to-last, aiming criticism towards Stephen Ross: he is the owner who supported Trump, but also committed $13 million dollars to his non-profit organization against racism, as reported in Jemele Hill's “The NFL Can’t Fight Racism When Owners Support Trump.” Ross is playing for maximum financial profit, and he is not the only one to do so: “The overwhelming majority of NFL owners are white, and when they do choose to get involved in politics, they usually champion conservative causes.” Yet, he, amongst others, is simultaneously trying to appease the public consensus in fear of ostracization: “...the Dolphins owner portrays himself as a champion of equality.” On the contrary, when a team plays well, such is the case with NFL champions New England Patriots, their similarly conservative owner Robert Kraft seems to escape public scrutiny. One cannot overlook how fans are feeding into this bipolar and unaccountable portrayal of public figures: in the analytical report “NFL Fans and The Racial Divide,” Jason Reid conducted multiple surveys among black and white NFL fans to astounding results.When asked for their opinions regarding an owner's ban on players’ kneeling, half of Black people strongly opposed the undemocratic decision, whilst 52% of White people strongly supported it. It goes to show the widely unrecognized partisanship from owners and fans, which will go unnoticed for as long as they view sports as either a strictly financial/marketing ploy, or an apolitical entertainment tool. For them, sports define the political conversation: If a team plays well, no one will pay attention to the politics involved; if it does not, scrutiny will plague as to whether the hierarchy of owners, fans and athletes needs replacing or revamping, to the monetary and perceptive detriment of all three. The owners and fans in this equation hold the power in determining sports’ social consensus; however, this power should not be confused with an exemption from consequences.

When all has settled, however, the most important part of sports for owners, fans and athletes boils down to one word: Legacy. What will be remembered of you? It is such an uncomplicated sentiment that has both inspired and destroyed athletes: how far would you go to have a place in history? How can you shape your image before you are no longer here? In 1968, track & field athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos cemented their legacies at the Summer Olympics, forever ingrained in sports history; what they did, however, concerned another type of race. Deneen L. Brown's ‘A cry for freedom’: The Black Power salute that rocked the world 50 years ago” unpacked the history of the defiant Black Power salute on the podium by the two aforementioned American sprinters: “The photo would become an iconic image of the Black Power movement and an emotional reference point among NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality.” By simply raising their fists, their images became a landmark memory for Black people and the general US populous during one of the world's most-watched televised events, undoubtedly publicizing a problem that had largely gone unnoticed at the time in the US: “...they lowered their heads to protest the hypocrisy of a country that proclaimed to uphold freedom and human rights… but neglected to protect the rights of black Americans.” Smith and Carlos lived on in the legacies they built for generations to come, erasing the notion that athletes must be silent to fight for basic human rights. This was also the first act of open protest against racism recorded in sports history, signifying a shift in sports mentality and becoming the forebearer for athletes using their platforms to speak out.

The "Black Power Salute"

In recent years, this notion of legacy being defined by off-field activities have become more prevalent due to the athletes’ increased monetary control, no longer having to base their income solely on playing salary but on other revenues such as sponsorships and advertising, which takes away control from the conservative owners.

But what happens when an owner cannot wield monetary control over his athletes? Colin Kaepernick is an NFL quarterback who knelt during the National Anthem in 2016 in support for racial equality; kneeling was an action started by Martin Luther King during a civil rights protest in Selma. In directly bringing this political action into the sport, Kaepernick was championing for a noble cause, yet he would see how consequences emit from his display of power: he was subsequently blackballed from the NFL for his perceived disrespect towards the flag. However, the ripple effects of his action, captured in Kurt Streeler's “Kneeling, Fiercely Debated in the N.F.L., Resonates in Protests,” transcended his boundaries as a football player. His kneel became the action of the bigger fight against racial injustices both in 2016’s presidential election and in 2020’s protests, no longer working in the confines of sport activism: “Taking a knee. Across the nation these last hard, uncertain days, demonstrators have turned to the gesture on city streets.” It signalled how times have changed the athlete: once considered a stigma to be politically involved, athletes are playing today as a direct response of unified power towards racial inequality and other social issues; simultaneously, their actions are helping establish a new normal for future generations, as it is no longer a matter of “shut up and dribble". To quote Nike’s solidarity ad for Colin Kaepernick after his banishment, “Believe in something; Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Impactful as his action was, not everyone saw it as inspirational; some might say it was a disrespect to democracy and our fallen heroes. In the aforementioned report, Jason Reid also surveyed how fans responded specifically to Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem; more than half of Black people strongly supported the act, and nearly half of White people strongly opposed. Another prominent white NFL player, Drew Brees, also expressed disdain towards Kaepernick's action, though he would later retract his statement.

Colin Kaepernick (middle) openly kneeling

Such is the nature of division between athletes, owners and fans, where political conversations will always be framed within the sports' spheres, essentially diminishing the platform's influences on the world as no more than entertainment. It is, however, impossible for athletes to disregard the natural tension of politics from the outer world: When Jackie Robinson first came to Brooklyn, the Dodgers' players, though initially uneasy, gradually embraced Robinson protecting him from unmerited taunting during his nine-year tenure; the players sacrificed, or more appropriately abolished their deep-rooted beliefs about baseball players' skin colors to focus on the professional side of baseball history. But throughout the MLB’s landscape at the time, few overlooked Robinson’s ethnicity: one of the most well-remembered acts of on-field racism happened when Tennessee-born baseball manager Ben Chapman verbally abused Robinson with derogatory terms during a game. Many attributed this action to have tarnished Chapman’s legacy, preventing him from entering the Baseball Hall of Fame, as expressed in “What Really Happened to Ben Chapman, the Racist Baseball Player in 42?” In a personal interview with Allen Barra, Chapman gave an explanation to his behavior: “Everyone used those kinds of words back then.” How many times have you heard this sentence? “Back then" is the universal, press-mandated apology that anyone caught with a racist act would use nowadays, justifying xenophobia and prejudice as a matter of upbringing, instead of a systemic problem that needs addressing. However, the sentiment was not unfounded; if one is raised in a time when sports figures would choose to let their game “do the talking", the problematic status quo would remain unchanged without “bold statements”, as Jemele Hill put it. By refusing to acknowledge what is systemically unfair, one is furthering the racist agendas in a game dominated by white owners.

We can see this in Kobe Bryant, one of the most recognizable sports figures on Earth who also refused to take a political stance during his 20-year career: many said Kobe was the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team personified, and I'd argue that if he had spoken out on any matter he cared about, people of power would have listened. When athletes with such influence choose to remain silent, he inadvertently suppresses the voices of future generations looking up to him. But with time, the changing currents caught up with Kobe; Derek Robertson's “Kobe Bryant Was the NBA’s Last Apolitical Superstar” was a signifier of how athletes have grown from sports-focused agendas: “Bryant’s apolitical attitude reflected the individual-focused, Jordan-era status quo in which he entered the league, but it eventually made him out of step with his younger counterparts, who have largely taken up the activist mantle...” Recused from politics, Kobe saw the NBA outgrew him, as while his on-court legacy is entrenched in history, his off-court life was a missed opportunity in a time when athletes and youths desperately needed a pioneering light. Again, this is understandable: being an influential African-American athlete meant that Kobe was always under greater scrutiny and pressure than most would dare to imagine, such that he would not voice their opinions in fear of white interests: “the Laker great said he “won’t react to something... because I’m an African-American.” It is not even an “if" he would have been blackballed had he done it, but a matter of “how": aside from Kaepernick, Smith and Carlos never ran track again, and if Robinson had rebutted Chapman, banishment from sports would have been the least of his problems.

Kobe Bryant was (ìn)famously apolitical during his playing days

Bleak as the picture was for athletes who spoke out for a cause they believed in, it is not an entirely unhopeful path; playing, raising their fists and kneeling: in different ways, these athletes believed they could succeed in creating a different narrative regarding the status quo, regardless of the heartbreaking precedence. We need not look far for an example of how brave acts of activism in sports helped create change than in Ben Chapman, who, in his old age, found something new: “Ben really was a different man in his later years… I was going out to a school in a black neighborhood to talk to kids about baseball, and he volunteered to go along.” Chapman, with time, displaced from his heart what he had believed as true to his upbringing. Kobe, in a smaller capacity, also acknowledged how sports have evolved, and with it the nature of athletes: “He built his legacy during an era where all that NBA fans expected of their superstars was a ruthless, self-justifying dominance on the court, but he ended his career in a time when his successors felt a responsibility to use their power and platform for social good. He seemed in recent years to be working his way toward finding his own typically idiosyncratic place in that firmament.” There is an argument to be made that Kobe had always been political in how he carried the confidence and swagger of a Black man who knew he could not be replaced in a league plagued with underlying racial tension. That same confidence led him to later become one of the outspoken pioneers for the Women's NBA, a role he had once refused.

It is always difficult to view athletes as humans; they always feel larger-than-life, almost superhuman, and are the manifestation of what we could never become as children. History might not remember Robinson or Kobe as an activist, or Chapman as a remorseful old man, and in earnest, it is fair; they did not make headlines doing such things. Maybe, even in the predisposed molds we have created for them, we were never supposed to see them as anything of prominence: their legacies, after all, are built, maintained and destroyed by human nature and their susceptibility to flaws; if we could not see them as imperfect, what power do we have in evaluating them at all? Yet, I'd argue would not remember their sports personas either: Children do not remember Robinson's batting average, did not evaluate Kaepernick with numbers and statistics, and will keep the image of Kobe and how important he was as an inspiration, not how he performed during an away game in May. Their legacies are flawed not in how they could not accomplish what we expected of them, but in how we constructed their images and held them accountable when we were children. Imperfect as they truly are, these athletes that we grew up with will always be remembered as something bigger than themselves, unbeknownst to the kid in us who idolized them, or to the sons and fathers who would, come rain or shine, watch Manchester United together.

By Chi Tran

Works cited:

[1] Carlos Maza, “CNN treats politics like sports — and it’s making us all dumber.” Vox, NBC Universal, 17 Apr. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pS4x8hXQ5c&t=40s

[2] Burns, David McMahon and Sarah, and Jackie Robinson. “Why Jackie Robinson's Legacy Matters Today.” Time, Time, 11 Apr. 2016, time.com/4282838/jackie-robinson-legacy/.

[3] Brown, DeNeen L. “'A Cry for Freedom': The Black Power Salute That Rocked the World 50 Years Ago.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 17 Oct. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/10/16/a-cry-freedom-black-power-salute-that-rocked-world-years-ago/

[4] Streeter, Kurt. “Kneeling, Fiercely Debated in the N.F.L., Resonates in Protests.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 June 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/sports/football/george-floyd-kaepernick-kneeling-nfl-protests.html.

[5] Hill, J. (2020, July 03). The NFL Can't Fight Racism When Owners Support Trump. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/nfl-cant-fight-racism-when-owners-support-trump/613813/

[6] Reid, J. (2019, February 01). NFL fans and the racial divide. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://theundefeated.com/features/state-of-the-black-nfl-fan-the-racial-divide-fracturing-the-league/

[7] Barra, A. (2013, July 17). What Really Happened to Ben Chapman, the Racist Baseball Player in 42? Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/what-really-happened-to-ben-chapman-the-racist-baseball-player-in-i-42-i/274995/

[8] Robertson, D. (2020, February 01). Kobe Bryant Was the NBA's Last Apolitical Superstar. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/01/kobe-bryant-politics-nba-obituary-110030