Dear ESPN: The only color that matters is on the jersey
Like many teenagers in the 1990s, my television was usually tuned to ESPN. Sportscenter highlights while I ate breakfast before school. NFL season highlight videos between two-a-day football practices. Baseball and basketball games on at night during homework. The “S” in ESPN clearly stood for “sports” back then, focusing on the achievements of the athletes and stories that inspire us.
Now, based on the juvenile trash that I occasionally see when eating at a sports bar or when I catch a provocative news headline, the “S” stands for s–t. I stopped watching ages ago, because I have better things to do in life than watch hosts bicker back-and-forth, talk politics, and snipe at athletes. Maybe all the negativity is what resonates with their viewers. Or it could be that ESPN is owned by a very woke Disney, whose mission seems to be undermining everything good in American society. Sports develop the values that made our nation great: competition, teamwork, grit, sacrifice, and the thrill of victory. If we worked as hard as Michael Jordan, we too could “be like Mike,” right? Sports inspired us to be better and brought Americans of all ages, ethnicities, and walks of life together.
What infuriates me is the frequent charges of racism coming from ESPN. The most recent example is a commentator suggesting that since there is a growing number of black quarterbacks in the league, the NFL may be conspiring to change the rules to attract more white quarterbacks and thus more white fans.
Are ESPN hosts and guests actual racists? Or are they just race hustlers, saying provocative things to get an audience? If ESPN suspects or has evidence that there is in fact some kind of conspiracy then they should investigate, not throw out mysterious allegations of systemic racism. At one time it was a real issue, back when UCLA’s “Gold Dust Trio,” Syracuse’s Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, and Iowa’s Duke Slater played. But ESPN is about 80 years late to the party.
I gave up on the NFL when players started kneeling during the National Anthem and stick to watching vintage games when my soul craves football. But back when I lived and breathed the sport, my favorite quarterback was Warren Moon. My second favorite? Randall Cunningham. As a very young kid I was a Jim McMahon fan — and still have my two-bar Bears helmet and McMahon jersey. As it turned out, all three played with my favorite player, Cris Carter.
The Oilers, Eagles, and Bears were very fun to watch. Few could throw a spiral as pretty as Moon. If you don’t get excited watching Cunningham dodge tackle after tackle, only to throw a bomb downfield then you aren’t wired right. He was electrifying. McMahon was, well, McMahon.
Back in high school we’d watch NFL highlight films tapes before football games on Friday afternoons in the film room and you’d see interview clips of Moon, who came across as a very nice guy and his teammates really seemed to look up to him. His opponents did too: I remember seeing an interview of a rookie defensive lineman who tackled Houston’s quarterback. As he helped his opponent up he respectfully said, “I’m real sorry Mr. Moon.”
“That’s ok Albert (or whatever his name was),” and the player was tickled to death that Mr. Moon actually knew his name. Puts a smile on your face doesn’t it?
Decades later I can come across a clip of Houston’s run-and-shoot offense and their pastel jerseys makes me smile and transports me right back to the being a kid again, back when life was good. That’s what sports are supposed to do.
By liking Moon and Cunningham was I virtue signalling decades before that became a big thing, or was it that I just liked watching these quarterbacks do spectacular things with a football? Whether they were white or black was not a factor to me, and I doubt that many other sports fans cared either. It takes an ESPN contributor to look at a football player and see race.
Many of the most popular and highest-paid NFL quarterbacks today are black and since NFL ratings have largely recovered from the dumpster fire Colin Kapernick started a few years ago, the roster’s racial makeup isn’t keeping fans away. No one is upset about the lack of white cornerbacks in the league because fans want the closest thing we can get to Mel Blount and Deion Sanders out there. Americans know the only colors that count on the field are yours and your opponents.
It’s not the melanin that matters, ESPN; its the red, white, and powder blue.
