Cowboys co-owner & COO Stephen Jones explained the team’s decision to observe a moment of silence for political activist Charlie Kirk before Sunday’s game against the Giants by saying it “was the right thing to do.” Jones, during his weekly Monday appearance on Dallas-based WFDR-FM said, “We’re against any type of violence -- gun violence, any type of violence -- in society. Certainly that’s just really a difficult situation when you see anything like that, regardless of who the person is, an innocent person basically being assassinated. And we felt like it was the right thing to do [as an] organization.” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones after the game against the Giants said, “We just all abhor violence. It’s impacting us all. Certainly, we all stand together on any front, relative to the threat of violence. … It’s something that we really all need to just be aware of, support our law enforcement and do everything we can to keep the balance in check” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 9/15).
SAME OL’ CONVERSATION: In D.C., Candace Buckner wrote Kirk “had nothing to do with sports.” Yet this past week, Kirk was “memorialized” before opening pitches at a handful of MLB games and ahead of the kickoff inside several NFL stadiums. On the same day Kirk was killed, the Yankees “displayed his photo on their giant scoreboard.” The next night, the NFL and the Packers “united in asking all of their paying customers to reflect on the life” of Kirk. Buckner: “Those organizations did not stick to sports.” A PR staffer for the Carolina Panthers was “fired” and a Suns reporter “lost his job” after social media comments made on Kirk’s death, respectively. Buckner: “[They] did not stick to sports. Neither did their employers. … Sticking to sports was never a sentiment that made sense. It was a plea of insincerity -- mostly uttered by those who were easily offended by athletes who had the audacity to express something contrary to their own political and cultural beliefs” (WASHINGTON POST, 9/15).
DIVIDED WE FALL: USA TODAY’s Nancy Armour wrote “one of the beauties of sports is the idea that they are the great equalizer. Your color, gender, sexual orientation, how much money you have -- it all becomes irrelevant when you step on the field.” Armour: “It cannot be one-sided, however, and that’s why the memorials to Kirk were so problematic. … This brand of ugliness is tearing our country apart, and everyone -- Democrat or Republican, red state or blue state -- should be condemning it at full throat. Instead, Kirk was treated like a venerable statesman before several sporting events over the weekend.” Sports has the “power to bridge our country’s divides.” These memorials to Kirk at sporting events “only served to widen them” (USA TODAY 9/15).
