This Age of Athlete Activism is Rooted in 9/11

Soon after the Twin Towers fell on September 11th, 2001, I received a phone call from Los Angeles. The voice of the Fox Sport Net assignment desk editor was hurried and bit tentative.

“It is all hands on deck. Fox News is asking all our reporters in New York to go to the World Trade Center as soon as possible,” he said.

I looked toward the bedroom window of my Upper West Side apartment, which was a few miles away from the attacks downtown, yet close enough to see and smell the smoke. After silently considering this call to action for several seconds, I finally replied, “Sorry, I’m essentially hiding under my bed and am going to stay here for a while.”

Being a sports reporter meant knowing we were considered part of the toy department of any media outlet. While many journalists bristled at this notion with an air of self-importance, on 9/11 I had great clarity about my role. Yet the past 20 years have changed most narratives of sport as a mere plaything.

In the days after 9/11, I went to back work, covering sports-related stories like the diligent relief efforts of players on the New York Mets and New York Giants delivering supplies to frontline workers. A report on Stuyvesant High School hit particularly close to home because I had been a student there myself. Located directly across the street from Ground Zero, football players and other students were fearful of getting out alive and traumatized from watching bodies fall from the sky. The football coach spoke poignantly about the cooperation of an archrival school, Brooklyn Tech, which immediately agreed to share its football field so Stuyvesant students could practice and continue their season.

I also kept careful tabs on return to play questions in professional sports and covered every local team’s resumption of activity. At Madison Square Garden, the NHL’s New York Rangers were the first back in action and as they hit the ice in a pre-season game, their red, white, and blue uniforms took on new meaning. During a story about tailgating in the Meadowlands parking lot, someone offered me a steak sandwich with the pile of debris from the Twin Towers still smoldering the background. For a moment, all I thought about was that the sandwich tasted really good, and the anticipation of a Sunday NFL game was palatable.

Major League Baseball’s return was the most emotion packed. When the Atlanta Braves visited New York Mets, players from both teams wore hats representing the New York Fire Department and New York Police Department in a unifying moment amid chants of U-S-A from the crowd. The night culminated with Mets catcher Mike Piazza belting a game winning home run. A game that really meant nothing, suddenly meant everything.

As we mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, it is significant to note we are in a time of resurgent player activism. Back in the 1960s and 70s, athletes like Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith drew awareness to anti-Vietnam sentiment, gender equity, and racial oppression. Then as sports in the United States exploded in popularity and became big business, athlete activism was largely dormant for two decades. Athletes focused on endorsements, even famously using a Nike advertisement to proclaim, “I am not a role model,” as Charles Barkley did in 1993.

How did we get away from that commercially fueled zeitgeist at the end of the millennium to the present age with NFL player protests sparking a global social justice movement? Or the efforts of Women’s National Basketball Association players swinging a pivotal 2020 U.S. election in Georgia? Why are philanthropic efforts by the athletic community at large, whether by individuals or collectives, more robust than ever?

In understanding this trend, many industry experts credit the National Basketball Association for putting social responsibility at the forefront of league efforts in 2004. While the NBA’s good work institutionalized such initiatives, the actions of New York players, coaches, and sports executives in the fall of 2001, when a “return to normal” was the rallying cry, are at the heart of what led to a lasting movement of greater civic embrace. These New Yorkers helped sports played a tangible, cathartic role in healing a city and inspiring a nation. They did good. With a humility and service, New York sports set a new standard for everyone around the globe to follow, shining light on the power of sport, which is something we should always remember.