NBA and WNBA Players Showing Us the Way
Guest Column
By Gerry Chidiac
In times of crisis, true leaders step forward. While effective political leadership has largely been absent, professional athletes, primarily players in the National Basketball Association and Women’s National Basketball Association, have demonstrated that celebrity status, when embraced with a sense of responsibility, can be a catalyst for global change.
Quite frankly, the examples of selfless leadership demonstrated by professional basketball players in recent months have almost been too many to mention.
When the remainder of the NBA season was cancelled in March, several players including Kevin Love and rookie Zion Williamson announced that they would help pay the salaries of stadium employees who found themselves out of work.
After the death of George Floyd, many players risked their health and their reputations by participating in protests.
As the NBA and WNBA have resumed play in their COVID-19-free bubbles, the statement “Black Lives Matter” has been front and center. Players also advocated to be allowed to display social justice messages on their uniforms, and the leagues obliged, albeit in a limited format. At a time when many are asking how we can bring about effective change, players remind us that we need racial justice, equality and education reform. We need to say the names of victims of racial violence and we need to stand up for one another.
It is also significant to note that both leagues have strong international components, with players who come from all over the world. They all make it clear to us that racism is a global issue.
Toronto Raptors star Serge Ibaka is from a former French colony, the Republic of Congo. He wears the phrase, “Respectez biso,” which translates to “respect us.” This message reflects the cultural and linguistic richness of his region, combining both French and Lingala to make a powerful statement.
France, like all European colonizers, does not have a stellar record in respecting the rights of Africans. The situation was even worse across the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a former Belgian colony, where Ibaka’s mother was born. The exploitation of the African continent by foreign interests continues to this day, as do poverty and violence.
Ibaka clearly understands the global significance of the Black Lives Matter movement. He states:
“What is going on in the United States is what is going on everywhere…. in Congo, in Africa, in all the countries in Europe, it’s happening too, in different ways. The fight we’re fighting here is bigger than the fight people are thinking [about] because if we can win this fight here, we’re going to change a lot of things around the world.”
Patty Mills of the San Antonio Spurs also understands the responsibility that goes along with his status. He and his family have experienced horrendous racism as Indigenous Australians. Not only has Mills volunteered many hours in his homeland, he has agreed to donate his earnings from the NBA restart, a sum of over one million US dollars, to social justice causes in Australia.
WNBA players are also speaking out courageously and have even shown a willingness to take on rich and powerful people who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement. League commissioner Cathy Engelbert expressed pride in the players “who continue to lead with their inspiring voices and effective actions in the league’s dedicated fight against systemic racism and violence.”
Many consider basketball, when it is played well, as the ultimate team game. NBA and WNBA teams demonstrate the amazing synergy that happens when talented people from all over the world come together in an environment of mutual respect.
It is time to not only recognize the character of these great athletes, it is time for us to follow their leadership.
Gerry Chidiac is a Canadian educator and a columnist for Troy Media.
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #30 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The State of College Athletics with Dr. David Ridpath: Problems and Potential Solutions – Ridpath is a sports administration professor at Ohio University and a long-time member of The Drake Group, a college sports reform think tank.
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Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
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Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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