I understand people who say they want sports to be a safe place where they can hide out from the world. Maybe I want that too. But I want a lot of impossible things.
My hot take on Colin Kaepernick is that he's a showboat. That's also my take on Tim Tebow. But so was Willie Mays and Muhammad Ali. Sports needs showboats because, despite what your junior high school football coach might have told you, it's just a way we play. It's not a metaphor for life. It's not important in and of itself. It's only a game and it's supposed to be fun.
What's makes Tebow and Kaepernick different from most showboats is that they called attention to themselves in putative service to serious ideas. When Tebow genuflected on the field he was doing so to make an outward signal of his inner faith. When Kaepernick genuflected, he was doing so to call attention to real and pressing problems in our country. Neither of these guys was engaging in simple self-aggrandizement (though there is a element of self-aggrandizement inherent in all showboating); they had an agenda beyond advertising their own excellence.
Both of them are now out of the National Football League, and it seems reasonable to assume that in both cases their purposeful showboating was a factor. Maybe it was less a factor in Tebow's case because I believe he'd still be in the NFL had he switched positions--he probably did not have the skill set to be a front-line NFL quarterback, but he probably would have been an effective running back or tight end--but let's not kid ourselves that his branding didn't affect the opportunities he received.
I think being Tim Tebow, Christian warrior, initially opened some doors for him (and continues to provide him with a livelihood, for Tebow's job now is not to be a minor league outfielder but an example) but eventually the circus that attended his every move became a liability in the eyes of NFL technocrats. Tebow, in the end, didn't get another crack at a quarterback job because the slim chance that he could learn to be an effective pocket passer wasn't worth all the fuss and ado.
Kaepernick's story is similar, though it seems clear that he's better than a lot of quarterbacks who have NFL jobs. (I know Tebow partisans would argue their guy is also better than a lot of quarterbacks with jobs; I don't think that's true, but pro football is a whole lot more complicated than it looks and unless you spend your waking hours breaking down film you're not qualified to judge. Your opinion's worth the same as mine.)
I didn't much like Tebow's showboating, but I still like him. I rooted for him; I thought he might be one of those awkward but good players whose goofy style confounds institutional groupthink. I thought he might become a pro football version of a bad-ball hitter of baseballs. I thought he might turn out to be something like the NFL's version of basketball's Dave Twardzik, the former Portland Trailblazer (and Virginia Squire) point guard who always looked like he was the second-best player on Vanderbilt's third-best intramural squad.
And though I disliked Kaepernick before his showboating, I've come to respect him and wonder if his legacy won't be better if he never plays again. Kaepernick has done chuckleheaded things--for one thing, he's displayed dubious taste in hosiery--but only the disingenuous can construe genuflection to be a sign of disrespect. And what he was speaking out about is something that needs to be spoken out about--we do have a problem with police killing people in this country.
This complicated problem likely has more to do with under-trained officers working in fear of the communities they're charged with protecting than raw racial animus (though there's no doubt there are bigots--who imagine themselves realists--in the ranks of the police) but it's important we begin to address it. Kaepernick has to accept the consequences of his actions. He's not owed a job in the NFL no matter how athletically talented he is, but his initial protest strikes me as a worthy kind of showboating.
This president doesn't get that and is willing to use any available stick to stir up diversionary conflict. And the NFL--a corrupt socialist cabal of billionaire louts--perceives the Twitter war as an assault on "the Shield" by one of the lesser billionaires they blackballed from the club.
While they're probably right about that, I have trouble caring much about those kind of feuds. It's become silly, a contest between alpha egos. What's being lost is the fact Kaepernick didn't genuflect because he hated the flag or America. He did it because it was a way to broadcast his protest message to a mass audience. Dissent isn't unpatriotic. It's the essence of Americaness.
You can be troubled by the same things Kaepernick is troubled by without making any overt public protest. That's your right. And you can disagree with athletes choosing the occasion of the anthem to make political statements, but you should understand it's their right. And if you cherish your right to speak your mind you ought to be wary of any NFL owner taking any action to chill this kind of peaceful and dignified protest.
Because they can do it if they want to. They have the right to employ who they want to employ. To say sports is a meritocracy is a lie; there are plenty of qualified players who will never get a chance to play for all kinds of mundane reasons. Players get cut for sneaking pizzas into their training camp dorms.
I bet there's some less-celebrated left fielder with a better chance of reaching the major leagues who could have filled Tim Tebow's low minors roster spot. (Sure, people will pay to see Tebow play baseball, but his signing was a business, not the "baseball decision" the Met's GM Sandy Alderson claimed.)
If you cheered for Tebow's overt declaration of faith, that's fine. If you thought Kaepernick was courageous for making a stand, that's fine too. But if you like one and hate the other, maybe you ought to consider whether you're being intellectually consistent and if it's genuinely the genuflection--the showboating--you find distasteful.
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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.
Editorial on 10/03/2017