No Kap, No NFL: Three Years without Football

June 30, 2020 by Soul On Ice

The last NFL game I watched was in January 2017, a divisional playoff matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys. Anyone who watched that game knows it didn't end well for Dallas. My boy Tinsley chronicled his experience in real-time, exposing people to a day in the life of a Dallas Cowboys fan. It was also the last time Tony Romo would ever wear an NFL uniform as he went on to retire later that calendar year. As was the case after every Cowboys season before that, the disappointment would carry into the later months and I would simply recharge the batteries for more anguish and pain once the 2017 season began.

However, there was no 2017 season for me, because the 2016 season was also the last time Colin Kaepernick would play in the NFL. Once it became obvious as to why he wasn't on a roster and allowed to compete, I renounced my NFL fandom and vowed not to watch another game until he was signed to a NFL roster. I have not watched it since. The way I saw it, if Colin Kaepernick was willing to jeopardize his career on behalf of people who looked like me, then I was willing to give up the NFL as a source of entertainment, no matter how long it had been a fixture in my life.

There is an expression as battle-tested as the days are long and it is very simple: God don't like ugly. That was a reason why it's been easy to not watch an NFL game, not engage in conversations about the NFL with anyone who continues to watch the product for over three years, and why it has been easy to never return. Colin Kaepernick took a knee to highlight systemic oppression against black and brown people and people of color in the United States and, as someone who has been black all my life, I knew exactly what he meant. It was easy to align with what he was doing. It did not take having to bury an unarmed loved one killed by the police for me to be upset. I see myself anytime I see stories of black and brown men who are treated unjustly by American law enforcement. It is impossible not to take it personally when people who lack empathy trivialize your feelings and stance about what has long been an issue in this country.

No Kap, No NFL: A Year without Football

February 01, 2018 by Soul On Ice

In March of 2017, I wrote some words about Colin Kaepernick and making adjustments (1). The sentiment was that Kaepernick took a knee to protest police brutality in the United States, and after doing so for the entire 2016 NFL season, his contribution to the movement would likely need to be modified after the season was over in order for the movement to take the next step, whatever that step was, also give me, a fan of the NFL since I was 9 years old, who became a rabid fan as I got older, an opportunity to make an adjustment of my own and show solidarity to his sacrifice. It was an adjustment that would have been inconceivable years ago: sitting out the 2017 NFL season. Don’t get it twisted; this decision did not come right away. There were people who made the decision long before I did (2). As a matter of fact, it took a good friend of mine, one who has traveled the roads with me to countless Dallas Cowboys games and training camps, to plant the seed.

Colin Kaepernick and Making Adjustments

March 03, 2017 by Soul On Ice

Recently, Colin Kaepernick declared that he will opt out of his contact with the San Francisco 49ers to become a free agent. On the surface, it seems like no big deal. An NFL player opting out of his contract to seek new surroundings is something that is done every off-season. However, every player doesn’t have the attention surrounding them the way Kaepernick had during the 2016 season. Despite that, it is odd, yet very convenient, to read and hear various opinions on one aspect of Colin Kaepernick’s social awareness and actions of last season and that is his decision to stand for the national anthem. Some people see it as him “giving in,” and “being influenced by money” or, even more hilarious, “not down for the cause.” These takes are, at the least, shortsighted and at worst, lazy.

I am not a role model: 20 years later

March 30, 2016 by Soul On Ice

A role model is defined as a person whose behavior, example, or success can be emulated, especially by young people. A role model isn’t confined to how much money a person makes, how many material things one can buy, and what profession one plies their trade in. A role model is simply someone who does things in a positive way, someone who people can look at, with universal respect, as someone who takes pride in what they do.

Nike made this clear in a 30-second commercial back in the early-90s when Charles Barkley announced to the world six words that reverberated loud and clear:

I am not a role model.

In 1993, as a ten-year-old kid two months shy of turning eleven years old, it made sense. Charles Barkley played basketball, played basketball as well as anyone in the NBA and was a great example for anyone who played the game. However, as a kid, it was never a thing to say “I want to be like Charles Barkley.” Even at ten years old, it was obvious that Sir Charles played the game and that was it (Newsweek Staff, 1993). He was paid, in his words, to wreak havoc on the basketball court.