Duty
I coached middle school wrestling in the 1980’s. It was part of my job to remind my squirrelly young charges that when the National Anthem was playing, they needed to be quiet, stand, and pay attention. They were thirteen and fourteen and would likely have just kept wrestling or talking if I didn’t intervene. Even as a high school coach, I would growl to my “more adult” athletes to respect the anthem – and the flag.
I stand for the National Anthem. I think about all of those friends and former students who risk their lives to protect what our Nation. And I think of the “kids” I coached who are standing watches in the night of Afghanistan and Korea, or in Iraq, or Lebanon in the past. I remember the friends now gone, who sank into rice patties in Vietnam, or froze in Korea, or parachuted into Occupied Europe.
More Perfecting
But I was really a twelve year old kid myself when I recognized that the National Anthem and the US Flag represented so much more than gallant actions and sacrifice in history. In 1968, two of my track heroes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, used their Olympic medal ceremony to present the grievances of American Black people to the world. For that they were thrown off the US Team and removed from the Games. But they also demonstrated what the US Flag stands for: a promise of a better future and a symbol for what is wrong but could be right.
It took a while for me to absorb those conflicting actions: that you could respect the flag and still use it as the basis for protest. That there was even a difference between raising a fist (or kneeling, or turning your back) or burning or trampling the flag. And that in spite of those differences, all of those actions, even the disrespectful ones, represent something unexpected.
They represent the BEST of America – that we stand not just for patriotism, but for idealism. That we are a nation striving, as the Constitution says, to become “more perfect”. That our ideals are strong enough to allow for criticism and protest and even disrespect, even in public, even as we strive to reach that perfection. We stand (or kneel, or trample) for freedom of speech, for your right to say what you believe.
USATF
In the past few years, Americans have grown to expect protests around the Flag. In fact, many sports organizations have tried to find ways to keep their athletes from being put “in the middle”. The NFL and the NBA have created ways to allow their athletes to use the “bully pulpit” of their athletic standing to voice political and social views, without confronting “the Flag” issue.
United States of America Track and Field (USATF) is the governing body for Track and Field in the US. USATF sets up the process and runs the competition for the National Championships. They select the United States Olympic Team. It was their meet, their organization, and their officials at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field – “Tracktown – USA”; picking the team over the past two weeks.
It might come as a surprise to the casual observer that the Awards presentation at the USATF Olympic Trials does not include a Flag Ceremony. Like the Olympic Games, USATF recognizes the three top finishers in each event. They all qualify to be on the Olympic Team (assuming they have achieved the Olympic event qualifying standard), and are also recognized as the top three in the Nation.
But a Flag Ceremony would be redundant. All of the athletes involved in the USATF Olympic Trials are American – to raise the US Flag each time would be repetitive. Unlike the actual Olympic Games, where nations are unofficially competing against each other, in the Trials, it is individuals competing to win a place on the Team.
Rule 39
The Hammer Throw is a field event. Using a heavy steel ball attached by cable to a handle, the athlete spins in a ring and tries to throw it as far as possible. Gwen Berry is a hammer thrower and has been one of the top in the nation for a decade. She represented the United States in several world competitions, and has made the finals each time, including the 2016 Olympic Games. She won the 2019 Pan American Games – and used the medal ceremony to protest US systemic racism by raising a fist at the end of the US National Anthem.
The US Olympic Committee and the USATF acknowledged her “right…to peaceful expressions of protest in support of racial and social justice for all human beings”. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) placed her on a twelve-month probation for the action. Gwen placed third at the Olympic Trials last week. She stepped up to the podium for recognition of making the 2020 (21) Olympic Team. As she was being recognized, the National Anthem began.
Meet management played the National Anthem at the beginning of each evening session – usually at 5:20. They claim it was a coincidence that the hammer awards ceremony was interrupted by the music. Perhaps the meet announcer was not aware of what the awards announcer was doing. A coincidence: that the one athlete already “highlighted” for protesting during the Anthem was on the stand. A coincidence: that the one athlete already sanctioned by the IOC was put “in the middle”.
On one of my “go-to” television show “NCIS”, lead Special Agent Gibbs has a series of life “rules” he constantly refers to. Gibbs’ Rule 39 states: “There is no such thing as a coincidence”.
Priority
Gwen Berry was caught off-guard. She hopes to medal in the Tokyo Games. And if she does, she definitely will protest in the medal ceremony. As she says:
“My purpose and my mission is bigger than sports. I’m here to represent those … who died due to systemic racism. That’s the important part. That’s why I’m going. That’s why I’m here today.” (ESPN)
But she wasn’t prepared for Hayward Field. She turned from the flag towards the crowd, and ultimately placed a black t-shirt with the words “activist athlete” over her head. She thinks she was setup by the USATF. It certainly seems that way.
You may not agree that National Anthem protests are appropriate. You may think that there might be “better” ways to make the point. But it’s the United States – and we don’t have the “right” to tell others how to protest. And even more importantly, we can tell the world that protest, criticism, even condemnation from within is not only “OK”; it’s a sign of a healthy democracy.
We certainly need some positive signs of that these days.
