LAST week we took a look at San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest on the pervading racial injustice and police brutality in the country. This week we take a look at athlete-activists who paved the way for Kaepernick and others to use their status, popularity and influence to express their sentiments and opinion about issues of societal and national importance.
In a democracy like in the United States, there’s freedom of expression. But with this freedom comes responsibility. Some athlete-activists make use and avail themselves of this responsibility to the fully cognizant while there are limitations and there are some that push the envelope crossing the line of responsibility and limitation, hence triggering a backlash.
The late great Muhammad Ali lost four lucrative years for fighting, outside the ring, the army draft which would have sent him to Vietnam prompting the Louisville Lip to stay, and which led him to declare “I don’t have no fight against them Vietcong.”
For his adamant and principled refusal, he was charged with draft evasion. Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are two of the most decorated National Basketball Association players in the history of the sport and they both sat side by side with Muhammad Ali after Ali was stripped of his boxing license and championship belts.
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MICHAEL JORDAN, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul are athlete-activists (although Jordan retired many years ago) who are having themselves heard and their positions and opinions expressed on a plethora of social issues mostly about racial disparity and police brutality. All four are unanimous in saying that there has to be a serious national discussion about unarmed black men being shot by police officers, not just white police officers but black police officers, as well.
Last Saturday the league leading De La Salle University Green Archers took a step closer to sweeping the first round of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines men’s basketball when they led from wire to wire in beating the Adamson University Falcons, 91-75. The Falcons gave the Archers everything they could handle but couldn’t bring the deficit down to single digits. The Archers improved to a spotless and immaculate 5-0, while the Falcons went a game above .500 at 3-2.
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FALCONS Coach Franz Pumaren didn’t feel a tinge of nostalgia or sentimentality while coaching against the school he gave six championships in 11 seasons, making him the most successful coach in school history. The Falcons were outrebounded, 54-32, due to their lack of height, heft and length. The Falcons are a big man or two away from contending for a title. According to reports, his team B is much stronger than this present crop of young Falcons. If Pumaren can get this youth-laden team into the postseason then it will be one of his better coaching jobs, if not his best coaching job ever.
According to La Salle Coach Aldin Ayo, his team hasn’t played its best basketball yet, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the competition. At 5-0, his team hasn’t peaked yet so we wait for what this team can do when it reaches its full potential. Five players scored in double figures for La Salle, led by Ben Mbala scoring a team-high 21 points and grabbing 16 boards.
There was a part in the game where La Salle power forward Abu Tratter turned the ball over on consecutive possessions so on the next time-out as Tratter walks to the bench, a hug from his head coach greets him as a vote of confidence.
In the next possession after the time-out, Ayo calls for a play for Tratter to post up Falcon Sean Manganti and he gets the ball and turns to his left shoulder and scores, which does wonders for the young man’s confidence. Tratter finished with six points and eight rebounds.
I like Ayo’s style of raising up his players after a turnover or a missed shot rather than shouting or screaming at them. These kids are young players and so is their confidence in themselves as players, which at this stage in their young career is still fragile. Ayo is a good and effective motivator which one needs to be in dealing with the youth.