Bucks’ boycott shines light back on Seahawks’ push to effectively join Black Lives Matter
Another, massive L for the stick-to-sports crowd.
The Seahawks are continuing to absolutely not stick to sports. They are part of a revolution within out society and in American sports, one that is demanding our country not only talk but change.
Pete Carroll’s and the Seahawks’ time to lead for an unprecedented push in the NFL for racial equality, a time they’ve talked about since before the death of George Floyd in May, has gained renewed momentum this week.
The Milwaukee Bucks protested the NBA playoff to a halt by refusing to take the floor for their playoff game 5 against the Orlando Magic in Orlando Wednesday. At about the same time the Bucks were boycotting, Shaquill Griffin, his twin brother Shaquem, Jamal Adams, Tre Flowers, Bruce Irvin were among about a dozen Seahawks teammates in sitting on the team’s metal bench at CenturyLink Field as a recorded national anthem played before their mock-game scrimmage.
That was about three times as many as had sat during the anthem before the Seahawks’ first mock game of training camp, Saturday at their home stadium.
An hour later, the Seahawks went into their locker room for halftime of their mock game. That’s when Seattle’s players began getting word the Bucks were boycotting their playoff game to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in their team’s home state of Wisconsin. The NBA then postponed all its playoff games in Orlando for Wednesday,
Griffin got the word in the locker room on his phone at his locker.
“I found out from a text from my father, actually,” Griffin said. “And he was like, ‘Did you see what just happened? Man, I’m SO proud of the NBA.’”
Griffin looked skyward quizzically, imitating what he did in the locker room at the mock game.
“That’s when I went on Twitter and kind of saw everything that was going on,” he said.
The Seahawks have been leaning forward for years into the Black Lives Matter movement. That lean intensified during the summer’s wave of protests nationwide by Americans fed up with police brutality and killings, racial inequality and little tangible progress toward ending it across the U.S.
Tuesday night, the Seahawks’ team meeting before the mock game was a Zoom call Carroll arranged with Sen. Cory Booker, a one-time candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election.
Carroll had met Booker, a former Stanford football player who became a Rhodes Scholar and went to Yale Law School, when the senator came through the Seattle area earlier this year. The coach hosted him on one of Carroll’s podcasts with Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr this summer, as the Black Lives Matter movement was rolling across the nation. Carroll and Booker have since stayed in touch.
During the team Zoom call with Booker the night before the Bucks renewed the issue’s momentum in their stunning way, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson asked Booker a question on police brutality, inequality and racism in the U.S., per the team’s website.
“We have a poverty of empathy in this country,” Booker told the Seahawks.
Carroll said of Booker on the team’s call with him: “He was amazing.
“He emphasized to us that everybody has a voice now, and everybody can speak out, and everybody can have an effect on the people that follow them and watch them. On social media, you know, every one of our guys has a big following, to some extent, so they have people that care about what we think about.
“And so he urged us to think about what we really want to say to those people, and know that we do have the power to have an effect.
“It was really, really a big evening for us. And there will be more to come.”
Wednesday, before the mock game began—as the Bucks were staging their boycott and before the Mariners players voted unanimously to not play their night game in Major League Baseball against the San Diego Padres—Carroll gathered the Seahawks in the locker room at CenturyLink Field. It was not to talk about the scrimmage.
It was to talk more with his players about Black Lives Matter. About how the players are processing the shooting of Blake on top of the shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville on top of police killing Floyd with a knee to his neck in Minneapolis...
Carroll made clear the Seahawks intend to act, unified, as a team, during the NFL season that begins next month to protest the lack of progress toward justice and humanity for all.
I asked Carroll if it seemed possible a pro football team—or more to the point, his team—will do what the Bucks did in the NBA: refuse to take a field and boycott a game when the NFL seasons begins in 2 1/2 weeks.
“You know, anything’s possible,” Carroll said.
“I mentioned to the players: this is the year of the protest season. This is a season of protests. So we’ll handle ourselves as we do.
“But this is a protest that doesn’t have an end to it until all the problems go away and we sovle the issues and stuff. So we are going to do our part and continue to work to stay actively involved, and continue to stay in touch with the situations that are going on, by staying on the topics. And with it, just in hopes that we can be there to help and support where we can and influence where we can.
“The whole Black Lives Matter thing couldn’t be more obvious, how true this whole movement is. And how much focus and change needs to come. It’s just so clear. Hope we can do something to help. ...
“I am going to listen to my guys.
“The fact that this occurred, again, with Jacob Blake (shot), in plain view and plain sight and all that is just such a horrific thing,” Carroll said. “However we respond? We talked about it again today with our guys, and try to give some moments to the thought of the families and what everybody has to go through all that stuff. There’s...it’s...”
Carroll’s voice trailed off.
“This is just ridiculous that we are putting up with this. I cannot imagine that this continues to happen,” he said. “I don’t know how somebody could ever do that under the circumstances and the awareness that everybody should have right now. But it continues to happen. So, it continues to be a real problem.”
The coach said “I really applaud” his players for taking Tuesday night in the middle of training camp to ask pointed and thoughtful questions to Booker.
“But we all know that’s not enough,” Carroll said. “Just a statement, and what’s important, and that everybody that’s involved knows: it’s what we do about it. What we keep doing to straighten things out and get things right.
“This whole thing is ridiculous. And anybody that doesn’t recognize that just isn’t paying attention,” Carroll said, spreading his arms out wide past his sides.
“And, so...yeah, we are on it, too.”
Carroll replaced offseason team Zoom calls this spring that were supposed to be on football and installing the playbook in lieu of minicamps cancelled by the coronavirus pandemic. He instead had his players lead intense talks during those remote team meetings about Black Lives Matter.
I asked Shaquill Griffin the same thing I asked Carroll: is it possible the Seahawks will not take the field in Atlanta for their opener Sept. 13, or for any other game in this NFL season?
“Right now, when it comes to the Seahawks, the only thing we are focusing on is week one,” he said. “I feel like what the Bucks are doing, you know, whatever they felt like was right, that’s something that they spoke upon. ...
“This is something that as a team you’ve got to speak about. I feel like people can’t be an individual and do their own thing and trying to figure out if it’s right or not. I feel like at this point we’ve got to speak as a team and try to figure out what’s best.
“But as of right now, we are just focused on week one. ...At this point, we’ve just got to figure out what’s best for us.
“But we are keeping our focus on the Atlanta Falcons week one, and trying to finish out this camp real strong.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 5:33 PM.
