Trump’s tirade against Kaepernick and call to boycott the NFL had the opposite of its intended effect, however: ESPN’s viewership ratings for the first four weeks of the 2017 NFL season were actually higher than their 2016 numbers, and over the course of the weekend and until Tuesday afternoon, #TakeAKnee showed up in nearly 2.2 million unique tweets, whilst #BoycottNFL had been used in just over 390,000 unique tweets. The firestorm caused by Trump’s statements have also brought much needed examination to a league that, despite 70% of its players being Black, has a reputation for shying away from political or racial commentary.

In his initial explanation for his decision to kneel, Colin Kaepernick stated, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color… There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” Trump, in a later interview, replied, “Maybe he should find a country that works better for him.”

In 1965, the American Football League (AFL), which later merged with the NFL in 1969, actually played an active part in the civil rights movement of the era and the creation of a country that would “work better” for People of Colour.

Immediately prior to the 1965 AFL All-Star Game, which was to take place in the historically segregated Southern city of New Orleans, Black AFL players were subject to racist exclusion, intimidation, and threats by the city’s white residents. The Black players were denied cab service from the New Orleans airport, barred from restaurants and clubs, and outside one nightclub, a bouncer pulled a gun on the Chargers’ Ernie Ladd and told him he couldn’t enter. The 21 Black players, along with some white players, voted to boycott the game, and AFL owners chose to move the game from New Orleans to the more tolerant city of Houston. The 1965 boycott, like the political protest of Black players today, was a highly visible act born not from a desire to disrupt, but a need for racial equality.

The League itself has long branded itself as a haven from politics. A 2014 Experian Simmons study found that registered Republicans were 21 per cent more likely to be NFL watchers than Democrats, and the Sunlight Foundation in 2011 found that contributions from the league’s 32 teams were nearly three times more for Republicans than for Democrats, indicating that the NFL, rather than a haven from politics, has historically been a haven from liberal politics.

American football historically segregated college teams until 1970, and racist notions of intelligence blocked Black players from the ‘thinking’ position of quarterback until this past decade and continues to prevent Black players from playing centre today. Moreover, the NFL accepted at least $5.4 million paid out to 14 teams from 2011-2015 by the Department of Defense for elaborate “paid patriotism” tributes to American troops. By 2009, the American military had failed to meet its recruitment targets for years, and so it began paying the NFL to help its recruitment efforts, paying teams to ‘sponsor’ military appreciation games, flying F-15s over stadiums, and unveiling American flags that spanned entire football fields.

The patriotism on display at NFL games, then, has long been one fuelled by agendas and policy, and not ‘simply’ patriotism. Protesting the policy of a state that continues to disproportionately kill, imprison, and exploit its Black peoples and People of Colour with impunity, then, should have as much place on the field as the paid promotion of the same state’s policies. Despite the front of unity that various NFL teams have presented this past week in the face of Donald Trump’s comments, it cannot override Colin Kaepernick’s original intention: to protest racial mistreatment. His kneel was not a protest against Donald Trump in particular. Standing in a stadium in Alabama calling for the silencing of predominantly Black protestors is as racist an overture as can be delivered, but the NFL must consider its own legacy of racism within the larger context of America’s before it can claim to stand (or kneel) for justice.

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In September, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) paid tribute to the man who harboured a serial child rapist on campus, prioritizing sports legacy over the legacy of trauma that one white man allowed another to inflict. September 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the late former head football coach Joe Paterno’s first game at Pennsylvania State University, the first of a record 409 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) victories. However, 2016 also marks forty years since Paterno was made aware of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of young boys via the Penn State football program, and forty years since he decided that, “I don’t want to hear about any of that stuff, I have a football season to worry about.”

The University, which fired Paterno in 2011 and tore down a statue dedicated to him shortly thereafter, was still in legal battle due to Sandusky’s actions and the Paterno’s inaction five years after the abuse was revealed to the public. The school sued its insurer for the coverage of the $93 million it paid out to 32 survivors of Sandusky’s abuse, while the insurer maintained that Penn State, and Paterno in particular, could have taken greater action once they were aware of the abuse taking place. Despite the ongoing legal issues, the school bent to the league of alumni and football fans who, led by Penn State board trustee Anthony Lubrano and Paterno’s widow, continue to deny Paterno’s role in covering up Sandusky’s crimes.

“Paterno Day” took place during a football game between Penn State and Temple University, and included videos memorializing Paterno’s football achievements, as well as fan tributes preceding and following the event. These included a shrine to Paterno where his statue once stood, and where the Penn State Nittany Lions and Pittsburg Steelers legend Franco Harris read a speech that included the lines “the powers that be can destroy our wall, but they will never destroy our bond and our love […] for our coaches and our fellow players,” and “we will stand up to the lies.” A nearby billboard was plastered with the Martin Luther King quote “‘the time is always right to do the right thing’, please return the statue”.

This collective memory loss, or in the case of Paterno’s most ardent supporters, straight up denial, begs the question: what is it about the legacy of a white man that makes it unalienable?
The answer lies outside just sport idolatry – we see memorials to white male abusers on our own campus, most recently this year in the form of the Le James bookstore. McGill’s history page about James McGill mentions how his “hard work and French fluency served him well” in the fur trade through which he made his fortune, but mentions nothing of the six Black and Indigenous slaves he owned who must have reduced the “hard work” required of him. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, Canada’s false belief that we are the Northern haven – the good end of the Underground Railroad – we gloss over the most deplorable of legacies in favour of the one where James McGill endowed ten thousand euros and the Burnside Place estate for the building of McGill University. It becomes easier to understand this selective memory when examining the racial demographics at McGill ­–in 2009, only 2.7 per cent of McGill’s population was Black and 0.8 per cent was aboriginal, while 71.3 per cent identified as white. Men, like James McGill and Joe Paterno, have more than one legacy – that which they leave upon their survivors, and that which benefits the 71 per cent, never mind the toll on Black and Indigenous lives.

Sports idolatry works in the same way – the sins of the gods of sport are overlooked, until they threaten the power of the elite. Such is the case of Black 49’ers player Colin Kaepernick, who has been under heated controversy for his decision not to stand during the U.S. national anthem due to the continued oppression of Black Americans and other marginalised groups. This decision has earned him slurs, internet vitriol, and comments, such as this one by hall of fame National Football League (NFL) coach and sports commentator Mike Dikta: “If they don’t like the country, if they don’t like our flag, get the hell out. That’s what I think.”

Football, as Colin Kaepernick has demonstrated, isn’t just a game. Like everything else, a football game operates in a political world. If football were apolitical, there would be no flag and no anthem during the game. Standing for the anthem, which Colin Kaepernick did not do, is merely upholding the status quo of the country – politically complacent, but a political act nonetheless. When a white man like Joe Paterno dies, he receives fervent tribute, and the white masses riot to uphold his status. Like James McGill, his name is plastered on campus, faults forgotten. Yet when a Black man dies, his every transgression is dug up, his legacy smeared. Such is the case of Black men shot by police in the U.S. and Canada. Such is the hypocrisy of the white man football fan, that a riot to protect a white man’s privileged position is greeted with support, but a Black football player’s peaceful protest for the very lives of Black men in America is met with vehement opposition. Joe Paterno’s supporters quote Martin Luther King Jr., yet fail to see the irony when they crucify a man who carries Martin Luther King Jr.’s intended legacy.
Paying tribute to Joe Paterno isn’t a matter of just prioritizing ‘the game’ above politics. It’s a decision to uphold a legacy of sports triumph over a legacy of abuse and corruption. A Black man who dares to stand (or kneel) for justice is told to leave the country, as if he somehow dishonours it by attempting to better it. But how do Joe Paterno’s actions better the country, that he does not receive the same condemnation from those within his sport? Paying tribute to Joe Paterno and James McGill is choosing to forget the legacies of trauma and victimization that those young men and those who were enslaved faced. Prioritizing the fact that you can go to this university today thanks to a white slave owner, or the fact that a football team was able to add a few more wins thanks to the enabler of a child rapist, is honouring the legacy that really matters to men like Mike Ditka: a legacy of upholding white men’s power.

On September 23, Penn State came to a settlement with its insurer. The settlement was reached in private, and there will likely be no answers to the question of whether Joe Paterno could have done more to prevent the crimes that took place under his leadership. The tribute that took place on September 17, however, answered the question of whether Penn State thought Joe Paterno failed those boys, or whether Penn State cared about those boys at all.

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