A popular saying in football is that a player’s best ability is his availability. The idea explains why injured players in professional football are often cut, released, or relegated to lesser roles. It’s why an NFL player’s history of missing games can keep him from getting a big contract. It’s why players who face criminal allegations are handled according to whether they’ll miss time on the field.
Simone Biles was expected to be the story of the Tokyo Olympics because of her long series of jaw-dropping performances up to now. Instead, she’s become the story of these Olympics because she’s not performing. Citing her mental health, Biles removed herself from the women’s gymnastics team final after one rotation on Tuesday night. A day later, she withdrew from the individual all-around competition.
Here’s something I almost never say: The NFL is right.When pro football announced last week that it will impose stiff penalties on teams that experience a COVID-19 outbreak involving unvaccinated players, it exposed a serious vaccination divide among its athletes. Fans also learned in real time that some of their favorite NFL stars are not only vaccine-hesitant but also susceptible to some of the same misinformation that has duped millions of other Americans.
College sports changed forever this week. Giving in to intense pressure from state lawmakers, the NCAA freed student athletes to profit off of their own name, image, and likeness for the first time. The next step in the NCAA’s forced evolution should be to restore the reputation of athletes whom the organization has demonized for capitalizing on their own fame.
When the NBA announced Wednesday that Phoenix Suns point guard Chris Paul was being sidelined indefinitely under the league’s coronavirus-safety protocols, the next question was obvious: Had Paul been vaccinated?
When the NBA announced Wednesday that Phoenix Suns point guard Chris Paul was being sidelined indefinitely under the league’s coronavirus-safety protocols, the next question was obvious: Had Paul been vaccinated?
Congratulations, tennis. You’ve won neither the battle nor the war with Naomi Osaka, but you have just bullied one of the biggest stars in your sport into quitting a major tournament that could use the publicity she would have brought to it.Osaka, the second-ranked woman in international tennis and the highest-paid female athlete in the world, withdrew from the French Open after a power struggle with tournament officials over whether she would attend obligatory press conferences.
George Floyd’s murder last Memorial Day persuaded a lot of people in sports to use their public profile to fight racism in America. So it was fitting that the NBA, its players’ union, and the WNBA players’ union joined together Tuesday, the first anniversary of Floyd’s death, to publicly challenge Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
The University of Texas insists that it is willing to confront its past racism and make sweeping changes for the sake of justice. What it won’t do is deal with the racist history of its school song.Last summer, amid nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death in police custody, more than two dozen Texas football players and other athletes issued a list of demands aimed at making their school more welcoming.
The night that sports began shutting down was the night that the United States began shutting down. On March 11, 2020, an announcer at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s home arena told fans just before tip-off that the evening’s game had been postponed. Within an hour, the visiting Utah Jazz revealed that a player—soon identified as the center Rudy Gobert—had tested positive for COVID-19, and the NBA also declared that it was indefinitely suspending the season.
The night that sports began shutting down was the night that the United States began shutting down. On March 11, 2020, an announcer at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s home arena told fans just before tip-off that the evening’s game had been postponed. Within an hour, the visiting Utah Jazz revealed that a player—soon identified as the center Rudy Gobert—had tested positive for COVID-19, and the NBA also declared that it was indefinitely suspending the season.
Playing the “The Star-Spangled Banner” at sporting events has become an empty gesture of patriotism—so empty that, when the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks quietly began skipping the ritual, 13 preseason and regular-season games passed before anyone noticed.On Tuesday, The Athletic reported that the Mavericks had abandoned the national anthem, making them the first team in the recent history of major professional sports to take such a stance.
In Sunday’s Super Bowl, three of the four offensive and defensive coordinators—the highest-ranking assistant coaches on the field—will be Black. That their teams are competing for a championship isn’t the only thing Eric Bieniemy of the Kansas City Chiefs and Byron Leftwich and Todd Bowles of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have in common. They also are striking examples of how the National Football League continues to fail Black coaches.
Last week, soon after Georgia chose its first Black senator, an idea began to circulate on Twitter: Perhaps the Reverend Raphael Warnock, who will be the 11th Black senator in United States history, should wear the WNBA’s signature orange hoodie when he is sworn in. After all, the women’s professional basketball league and its players share credit for Warnock’s victory.
College football is now the epitome of the way dysfunction becomes normalized in America. Fans of the sport woke up to the news Saturday morning that the Clemson–Florida State game was postponed because a Clemson offensive lineman had tested positive for the coronavirus the day before. The matchup was one of 18 games that had to be canceled or postponed last week because of COVID-19.
When I interviewed Vice President–elect Kamala Harris last year at the Essence Festival, she had plenty of wisdom to share about the challenges a Black woman faces when pursuing national office. “Some might think that breaking barriers means you start off on one side of the barrier,” said Harris, who was running for president at the time, “and then you just turn up on the other side of the barrier. No, there’s breaking involved.
Before last night’s vice-presidential debate, the hype, at least among Democrats, was that Kamala Harris was going to knock Mike Pence out. You might have thought it was 1988 again, and the debate was that year’s most anticipated prizefight, with the senator from California playing the role of Mike Tyson and the sitting vice president cast as Michael Spinks.Tyson knocked out Spinks in 91 seconds.
The coronavirus pandemic is still ravaging America, just as it was in August, when the college presidents and chancellors of the Big Ten Conference decided against playing football in the fall. The only thing that’s changed is that the same leaders now feel far more comfortable with the risks.The Big Ten’s announcement this week that college football will begin the weekend of October 23 isn’t cause for celebration, but rather an indication of how easily money shifts priorities.
Like DeSean Jackson, the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver who is being condemned for posting a fake Adolf Hitler quote on his Instagram feed last week, I too have had an ill-advised Hitler moment.In 2008, I was a general columnist for ESPN.com, covering the NBA Finals series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics.