#Middlebury #ASportingView
By MARK VASTO
This isn’t the first time politics invaded the football world.
Teddy Roosevelt loved the game and helped start the NCAA while he urged rule makers to ban the controversial “flying wedge” (controversial because it KILLED players). Dwight Eisenhower played football for Army, and Richard Nixon played on the practice squad for Whittier College (more on that later). JFK made the JV squad at Harvard, Gerald Ford was an All-American center for Michigan and Ronald Reagan played on scholarship at Eureka College. Also, he played the “the Gipper” in a Hollywood movie.
With the notable exception of Nixon (of course), nobody has meddled more with football than our current dear leader.
Donald Trump never played the game, but he used to own the coolest USFL team – the New Jersey Generals – in the early ’80s. There he was famous for threatening to fire the coach if he ever used fullback Maurice Carthon on a goal-line play, before suing the NFL for being a monopoly – a case he won, receiving $3 in damages – before taking his ball and going home.
Now, he has opened up a new front: affront over players who kneel during “The Star Spangled Banner.” (Incidentally, nobody complained when Tim Tebow took a knee, but I guess that’s because he wasn’t protesting anything, he was merely professing his faith.) Trump says it’s disrespectful to the flag and the veterans who served this nation, and while I agree with that sentiment, it isn’t making me tune out.
Players and veterans alike seem to agree on one thing: They should be allowed to take the knee if they want to. Veterans fought for our constitution and way of life. They didn’t expressly go to war to defend Francis Scott Key’s signature work. “The Star Spangled Banner” was written by Key while he was in prison, and as our president will surely tell you, that means he’s a loser.
Our president doesn’t like anthem writers who get captured. And while he seems to think that his message will somehow unite us, it actually has been one of the most divisive stances any president has ever taken.
Football never liked it when Nixon got involved with football, either. He was known to draw up “tricky Dick” plays for the local pro team that were never used. In 1969, he declared that he would decide who the No. 1 college team was, to the delight of nobody. But it was his speech, delivered on a football field to Whittier College grads, that contains a credo that resonates even more today than back then.
“When I speak of firmness … we must have firmness without belligerency,” Nixon said. “It’s very easy, I can assure you, and sometimes very tempting when you are insulted to strike back with the same words. But we must avoid engaging in a war of words which would heat up the international atmosphere to the point that we would have a nuclear disaster. And a nation that is strong, a nation that is confident that it is right, does not have to resort to returning insult with insult. We can be confident of ourselves.”
I’m confident that this impasse will pass soon, and we’ll just go back to watching adults play games again where they’re meant to be: on the field. When that happens, America will be truly blessed.
Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter who lives in New Jersey.
(c) 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.
