From LeBron James and Kevin Durant to Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, there’s a long list of athletes over the years who’ve criticized President Trump. But in the days leading up to Tuesday’s election, some notable sports figures are sending out a different message: Vote Trump.
NFL great Brett Favre and NHL star Bobby Orr on Friday each endorsed the president, one day after golf legend Jack Nicklaus said he’d cast his ballot for Mr. Trump and urged his millions of fans and followers to do the same.
Nicklaus tweeted that Trump has “delivered on his promises. He’s worked for the average person. In my opinion, he has been more diverse than any President I have seen and has tried to help people from all walks of life — equally.”
Favre, in his tweet, praised Trump’s support of freedom of speech, the Second Amendment and police. “My Vote is for what makes this country great, freedom of speech & religion, 2nd Amnd, hard-working tax-paying citizens, police & military.”
Orr endorsed the president in a full-page ad in the Manchester Union Leader.
The president, a former United States Football League owner, has enjoyed support for years from athletes like the NBA’s Dennis Rodman, an alumnus of the billionaire’s reality show, “The Apprentice,” and Herschel Walker, who played for Trump’s USFL franchise, the New Jersey Generals.
Walker, who spoke on the president’s behalf at the Republican National Convention earlier this year, has long been a prominent advocate for Trump, jumping on social media Sunday to push back against veteran South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who questioned why Walker, a Black man, would support a president accused of making what critics see as racially insensitive comments.
Walker fired back, defending the president and accusing the longtime Democratic congressman of taking the president’s comments out of context.
Despite defenders like Walker, Trump’s time in the White House has been marked by ongoing high-profile clashes — often instigated by the president himself — with left-leaning players and coaches from across the sports landscape.
James called the president a “bum” and accused him of “using sports to divide us” after Trump uninvited Stephen Curry and the 2017 NBA champion Golden State Warriors to the White House.
Durant, a Prince George’s County native and another outspoken critic of the president, has called him “heartless.”
Rapinoe was co-captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team last year when she told reporters she would skip the White House if the team won the World Cup — which it did.
“I don’t think anyone on the team has any interest in lending the platform that we’ve worked so hard to build, and the things that we fight for, and the way that we live our life — I don’t think that we want that to be co-opted or corrupted by this administration,” she told CNN.
The traditional post-championship celebration ceremony at the White House has since become fraught with political baggage.
When the Nationals won the 2019 World Series, seven players from Washington’s active 25-man active roster did not attend, including Anthony Rendon and Sean Doolittle.
The latter is one of the most politically outspoken players in the league, who told The Washington Post he didn’t attend because of Trump’s “divisive rhetoric and the enabling of conspiracy theories and widening the divide in this country.”
On the flip side was Kurt Suzuki at the ceremony, the president’s arms wrapped around him from behind in a hug, a “Make America Great Again” hat on his head.
Ryan Zimmerman thanked Trump for the invitation, then said he’d “like to thank you for keeping everyone here safe in our country and continuing to make America the greatest country to live in in the world.”
Neither Suzuki nor Zimmerman offered a direct endorsement of the president or his policies with those actions. But it was enough to rile a facet of Nationals fans, drawing ire online while displaying the divisive nature of politics and sports — and how the commingling of the two can result in anger from both sides of the aisle.
Much of the antagonism between Trump and the sports world emanated from the president’s repeated criticism of former NFL quarterback Kaepernick, who became a target for then-candidate Trump in 2016 after Kaepernick began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.
As Election Day arrives, coaches and players have urged fans to get out and vote.
“It’s a tremendous thing we have that people all over the world wish they had. You know, we have a say in what our government is going to be like,” Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera said Monday, “Whether you’re Republican, whether you’re a Democrat, whether you’re an independent, you’ve got to vote. And it’s like, people always ask me, ‘Who’d you vote for?’ I always tell them, ‘I voted American.’”
James, who has often come under fire for using his platform to spread political or social justice messaging, created a voting rights organization in June to help Black people vote.
In an interview with the New York Times, James pointed to the long-standing history of athletes making political statements; while his messaging may receive more notice, it’s not entirely unique.
“I’m inspired by the likes of Muhammad Ali, I’m inspired by the Bill Russells and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbars, the Oscar Robertsons — those guys who stood when the times were even way worse than they are today,” James told the New York Times. “Hopefully, someday down the line, people will recognize me not only for the way I approached the game of basketball, but the way I approached life as an African-American man.”
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