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Editorial: Hoover, the NFL and the anthem
Op-Ed · November 09, 2017


In regards to the National Football League national anthem controversy, we believe the players have the right to kneel, league and team owners have the right to enact discipline and fans have the right to support or oppose players expressing their point of view.


When President Herbert Hoover of West Branch, Iowa, signed into law a bill making the Star-Spangled Banner the national anthem, the song “fit his feelings about the country and expressed it eloquently,” according to Hoover biographer Prof. Glen Jeansonne.

Yet after fans noticed 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sitting on the sidelines on Aug. 26, 2016, the six-year San Francisco player told the media the song did not reflect his feelings toward America.

He said he sat because he wanted “to stand with the people that are being oppressed … people that don’t have a voice, people that don’t have a platform.”

Kaepernick said he respects the military, but did not think the freedom the military protected was enjoyed fully by every American.

“People are dying in vain because the country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up,” he said.

After taking heat for the practice, he opted out of his contract in March 2017 and no other NFL team has picked him up, even though Kaepernick rated higher than several of his starting counterparts. A few other players had copied Kaepernick’s practice, then a few more.

Then, 86 years after Hoover signed the national anthem bill, President Trump started talking about “Take A Knee,” making the Sept. 23 suggestion that team owners should say, “Get that son of a b---- off the field right now, he’s fired. He’s fired!” He equated kneeling during the anthem with disrespect for America’ heritage “and everything we stand for.”

That prompted many more NFL players, as well as coaches and owners, to get in on the action. Yet the surge in participation seems, on its face, more like a statement against Trump than oppression.

Of course racism still exists in America, but NFL players taking a knee does little more than remind us of it; it does not point us in the direction of addressing it. The message does not have the clarity of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 54-mile Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery.

That’s the problem for team owners: With so much left open to interpretation, it is difficult to support or oppose the players’ actions in a way that may quell the 18.7-percent drop in TV ratings since before Kaepernick’s protest. Further, TickPick recorded a 17.9-percent drop in ticket sales in the week following Trump’s comments and a 16-percent drop since the year before. Lower ratings means TV stations make less money on ads, too.

Sports reporter Diana Moskovitz, who works for the website Deadspin, dug into the NFL’s position on the National Anthem, and found an obscure rule in the “Policy Manual for Member Clubs,” which is separate from the NFL rulebook and “not … easily accessed from the NFL website.”

She found a 2014 edition of the manual in the lawsuit over the suspension of New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady. The National Anthem policy reads: “The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. During playing of the National Anthem, players on the field should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. Players in the bench area should do the same and should line themselves up evenly along the sidelines. The home team should insure (sic) that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in disciplinary action from the League office.”

However, ESPN’s Kevin Seifert found that the NFL quietly changed the wording and in October distributed this new policy to media outlets: “The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.”

Moskovitz points out that the NFL added “a lot of punishment,” but removed language that specifies the punishment would come from the league. She could not get the NFL to clarify, but many businesses’ policy manuals contain such language — if you represent the company, you are expected to behave in such a way that does not do harm to the company’s image, or bottom line, or both. Check verified Twitter accounts of national news celebrities and many bios include phrases like, “opinions are my own.”

There’s a grey area for when a player appears in a stadium versus when they appear in public, but these protests are taking place on the field. The team owners have a right to take action if they can show it is causing problems; or they can withhold punishment if they agree.

And no one is required to dole out $90 to more than $300 for an NFL ticket, either, so fans must decide for themselves whether they support or oppose the protests, or just do not care.

Jeansonne said he thinks Hoover would dislike the protests and consider it “disgraceful to the flag and anthem, but also (for) putting yourself out there (for) self-publicity, deliberately drawing attention to yourself.”

However, Jeansonne did not think Hoover, had he been a coach, would say or do anything to a protesting player unless it hurt the team. He also thinks Hoover would not avoid an NFL game because of it.

We think Jeansonne’s interpretation of Hoover’s view as an owner is reasonable and just. We leave it to the reader to decide whether they will turn the channel or buy the ticket.