Jack Mahoney
English 123
Prof. Drown
1/17/2019
In the article, “The era of the sports god who shuns politics is sadly over”, New York post writer Clay Travis emphasizes the role famous professional athletes play in politics. He begins the article by reliving his childhood, and what athletes he looked up to at the time. He illustrated how he strived to be as good of a Basketball player as Michael Jordan and equally as talented in Football and Baseball as Bo Jackson. Then, Travis stated, “No one starts a game with more points on the scoreboard based on their race, gender, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation.In sports, the best man or woman wins. Period.” (Travis) This quote introduces the belief that the author has that politics should be left out of professional sports. The author then stated,” Throughout my childhood as a sports fan and into my early young adulthood as I became a sportswriter, radio host and television commentator, sports didn’t divide us — they united us. While the country faced substantial challenges — the first Gulf War, the tech stock implosion, 9/11, the subprime mortgage collapse — sports didn’t exacerbate those tensions or politicize any of them. Instead, Americans looked to sports as a welcome diversion from the challenges we faced as a country (Travis)”. Personally, I agree with his statement. Although professional athletes deserve great respect in their respective communities, I believe they do not have the ability to fight something that wont be fixed necessarily with their support. Travis uses the example of Michael Jordan who during the 1990’s stated, “Republicans buy sneakers too” when asked about why he did not speak out about issues surrounding the country at the time. Jordan understood that the best way to unite the country and please people was by playing basketball, and expanding his shoe game. He could not risk losing popularity during the 1990’s as his career and brand were taking over the world. Travis also believe that the usage of social media allows politics to sneak into the world of athletics because some athletes are obsessed with their own identity, and can’t afford to not be liked by all people from different backgrounds. Personally, I believe that the world of athletics is not a place for social experiments.
