Site Presented By
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
You'd think that a few thousand wealthy 20-somethings would have opinions on the looming war. Not in professional sports, though.
Feb 28, 2003 | Sports is entertainment, but sports celebrities are a different breed from their showbiz cousins. Case in point: Movie and TV stars are nearly ubiquitous in the debate over a coming war with Iraq. Just this week Janeane Garofalo, Mike Farrell and Susan Sarandon shared their views with America on the Sunday talk shows.
Meanwhile, a Division III women's basketball player in suburban New York has made national news just by expressing an opinion. Part of the news was how Toni Smith expresses herself -- by turning away from the American flag during the national anthem -- and how people have responded, by filling gyms for her games and chanting "Leave our country!" at her, for example. But the shocking thing, the real story here, is that an athlete, somewhere in America, has spoken out about politics, however innocuously.
"For some time now, the inequalities that are embedded into the American system have bothered me," read a statement last week by Smith, senior guard-forward and team captain for the Manhattanville College Valiants. "As they are becoming progressively worse and it is clear that the government's priorities are not on bettering the quality of life for all of its people, but rather on expanding its own power, I cannot, in good conscience, salute the flag."
Pretty standard-issue stuff for a liberal arts major at a liberal arts college. There might not be a dorm floor in America without at least one student who might have said it. But Smith, whose bio page on the team Web site reveals her favorite movie is the none too radical "Days of Thunder," is a cause célèbre. She's all over the national press and the cable yammer fests.
Why all the fuss? Because she's a jock. Athletes don't talk about things like this, even way down at Division III.
We all know what Martin Sheen and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kim Basinger and Richard Gere and Barbra Streisand and a squad of other stars think about various political issues, and whether Fred Durst is in agreeance with them, but from athletes the silence is deafening. Dallas Mavericks guard Steve Nash wore a generic antiwar T-shirt -- "No War. Shoot for Peace" -- to media day at the NBA All-Star Game and tongues are still wagging. That was three weeks ago.
Remember that awards show a decade or so ago when Michael Stipe of R.E.M. wore a different T-shirt with a political slogan on it every time the band collected an award? He probably made more political statements that night than all of the professional athletes in America have made since.
Why is that? It's not the money. Sure, the top few guys don't want to scare off any potential endorsement clients by stirring up controversy, but how many athletes does that apply to? Golfers, tennis players and race-car drivers have to please corporate sponsors who don't want any waves made, but there are about 3,500 guys on rosters in the NFL, NBA, NHL and the major leagues, all of them making what you and I would consider huge money, and they're going to keep making it as long as they can play, regardless of any political pronouncements. John Rocker, who made outrageously offensive comments about foreigners and gays a few years ago, is struggling to stay in the big leagues these days not because he's a bigot but because he can't throw strikes.
Not many of those guys stand to make much extra from endorsements, either. Think of your local teams. How many players are there who have a chance to do anything beyond the odd local car-dealership spot for a few thousand bucks or maybe a year's lease on an Escalade that they can afford anyway? Eyeballing some random rosters, I'd say 10 percent would be a high estimate, but let's be shoot-the-moon generous and say it's 30 percent.
That still leaves almost 2,500 people who are mostly in their 20s. When I was in my 20s I had nothing but opinions, and rarely did one go unexpressed. And I didn't have people shoving microphones and tape recorders in my face asking me what I thought of things, which I would think gives a person the idea that folks want to know what he or she has to say -- about anything.
And anyway I don't buy that making political statements, short of Rocker-like pronouncements, is bad for business. You might scare off a corporate client or two, but you'll also separate yourself from the pack. Never mind that the only Manhattanville College Valiant you've ever heard of or ever will is Toni Smith. Consider that Charles Barkley hasn't exactly made himself unmarketable by shooting off his mouth, sometimes politically.
Quite the opposite. He's marketable precisely because he's a real person, a guy we've gotten to know over the years, not just another drone in a jersey. Maybe he's not the first guy you call when you're looking to pitch a soft drink. (He'd be high on my speed-dial, but perhaps that's why I don't sell soft drinks.) He is on the short list, though, if you've got an idea for a sports-related TV show. There's a little money in TV, I hear.
