The Mayne Man
For your consideration ...
The above essay by longtime ESPN anchor Kenny Mayne is an echo, in a way, of a blog I recently posted reminiscing about my reaction to John Carlos’ and Tommie Smith’s Olympic protest of almost 50 years ago.
Not many people read my blog, and that’s OK. I’m no Kenny Mayne. Whether you read that particular blog or didn’t, I hope you’ll read Mayne’s essay.
The subject at hand is always timely, but especially so for me because just this morning the Albuquerque Journal published yet another Sports Speakup item from a gentleman who says he’s refusing to attend University of New Mexico football games this season. He’s still angry because, last Sept. 30, five UNM players knelt during an unscheduled playing of the national anthem at halftime of the Lobos-Air Force game. He’s angrier still because, at a subsequent news conference, UNM coach Bob Davie supported the players’ right to do so.
As I wrote in my previous blog, my 20-year-old self initially was deeply offended at the actions of Smith and Carlos on the Olympic medal stand in Mexico City. Even 48 years later, my initial reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s protest was more or less the same.
In each case, though, I eventually realized that — as one who will never be pulled over for driving while white — I wasn’t SUPPOSED to like what Smith, Carlos, and then Kaepernick had done. All they were asking (or hoping) from a white kid/white guy from Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights was that I would at least consider their reasons for doing what they did — knowing the anger, scorn, loss of employment opportunities, etc., that awaited them.
As for our Sports Speakup contributor, I can’t tell him what to think, how to feel or how to spend his discretionary income. I would, however, remind him of the words expressed last fall by Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun — an Air Force Academy graduate and a military veteran — in reaction to the UNM knee-down controversy.
“We live in a country,” Calhoun said, “where they’re allowed to do that.”
Not many people read my blog, and that’s OK. I’m no Kenny Mayne. Whether you read that particular blog or didn’t, I hope you’ll read Mayne’s essay.
The subject at hand is always timely, but especially so for me because just this morning the Albuquerque Journal published yet another Sports Speakup item from a gentleman who says he’s refusing to attend University of New Mexico football games this season. He’s still angry because, last Sept. 30, five UNM players knelt during an unscheduled playing of the national anthem at halftime of the Lobos-Air Force game. He’s angrier still because, at a subsequent news conference, UNM coach Bob Davie supported the players’ right to do so.
As I wrote in my previous blog, my 20-year-old self initially was deeply offended at the actions of Smith and Carlos on the Olympic medal stand in Mexico City. Even 48 years later, my initial reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s protest was more or less the same.
In each case, though, I eventually realized that — as one who will never be pulled over for driving while white — I wasn’t SUPPOSED to like what Smith, Carlos, and then Kaepernick had done. All they were asking (or hoping) from a white kid/white guy from Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights was that I would at least consider their reasons for doing what they did — knowing the anger, scorn, loss of employment opportunities, etc., that awaited them.
As for our Sports Speakup contributor, I can’t tell him what to think, how to feel or how to spend his discretionary income. I would, however, remind him of the words expressed last fall by Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun — an Air Force Academy graduate and a military veteran — in reaction to the UNM knee-down controversy.
“We live in a country,” Calhoun said, “where they’re allowed to do that.”
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