Welcome back to the Indiana Daily Student’s national sports column where we will now talk about politics.
We are now in week two of the Trump administration. It’s been, shall we say, a bumpy ride thus far. We’ve seen a banning of a religion through shoddy legislature, an attack on the idea of “facts” and protests across the nation from Los Angeles to New York.
I repeat, we are in the second week.
This column is supposed to be about sports. This column is supposed to be about what’s happening on the courts and fields. This column is supposed to truly break down and analyze the athletes that we all know and love. This column is supposed to be a lot of things, but ultimately most of those things aren’t important.
Sports are a refuge, a pleasant oasis away from our daily lives. After 9/11, New York City rallied around the New York Mets’ first home game. The same thing occurred in Boston after the marathon bombing. Who wins and loses isn’t really that imperative; it’s the break from the doldrums of life that makes it so worthwhile.
People are upset. If you voted for Trump, you were mad before the election. If you voted for anyone else, you probably got pretty angry afterwards.
There superficially was always a divide between sports and politics. On Feb. 12, 2016, Arcade Fire frontman and NBA Celebrity All-Star game MVP Win Butler began to talk about health care. IU alum and ESPN personality Sage Steele cut him off.
“We’re talking about celebrity stuff, not politics,” she said.
I met Steele during my freshman year. I loved meeting her, and it’s still one of my fondest memories from IU.
But how she handled that particular situation is a problem.
The retort of “stick to sports” has been diminished even further as of late. The political climate ensured this.
Recently, the Ringer pulled together a partial list of sportswriters who commented on Trump. These personalities can be found everywhere.
ESPN, the Boston Globe, New York Magazine, Deadspin, SB Nation, Sports Illustrated. Wherever you get your sports news, there’s bound to be someone commenting about politics.
This is good. The division that we artificially created has splintered hurriedly and tremendously in recent months. Instead of being too scared to hear opinions and muting those with a platform, a more liberated and opinionated sports dais has been unleashed.
Along with the people behind the camera, athletes and coaches are not straying from sharing their takes. The NBA, perhaps the most liberal and forward-thinking of the major leagues, has had plenty of people state their opinions no matter the context.
Social media has been a dominant factor in this trend and will continue to do so, as it allows athletes to directly contact their fans. It seems that we reached a breaking point collectively with caring about comments and retorts.
There will always be someone screaming into the void that professional athletes should stick to sports. It seems that these individuals have heard these screeches so often that they now fall on deaf ears.
No longer are we at a crossroads. We’re far past that.
Now, we’re at a place where if you have a political critique or opinion, you just state it. Trump has transcended what we expected from him and destroyed an age-old institution of “sticking to sports” in one fell swoop. It took 10 days for him to take the United States snow globe and shake it up.
On Monday, Toronto Raptors’ point guard Kyle Lowry spoke to the media about Trump’s travel ban.
“Personally I think it’s bullshit,” he said.
“Wanna try that again without swearing?” asked a reporter.
“No,” Lowry responded.
gigottfr@indiana.edu
@gott31
