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so much class
In all seriousness, I'm glad for him.
John Carlos Meets the Spurs
Meeting and speaking to the San Antonio Spurs meant a great deal to 1968 Olympic gold medalist and protester.
By
Dave Zirin
TODAY 11:43 AM
Athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos, right, raise their fists in protest during the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, 1968. (AP Photo / File)
This past weekend, I traveled to Texas with 1968 Olympic Sprinter and medal stand protester John Carlos to speak to the San Antonio Spurs. At the request of their head coach, Gregg Popovich, Dr. Carlos addressed the team and then we attended a practice. I delivered an intro about the social context of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and then turned it over to Dr. Carlos for a brief talk and Q&A.
Out of respect for everyone’s privacy, I’m not going to write about the intense questions that the Spurs players asked Dr. Carlos. I’m not going to write about the unique culture created by Coach Popovich, a culture where listening to John Carlos was seen as an important part of getting ready for the NBA season. I’m not going to write about his terrific collection of assistant coaches. I’m also not going to write about spilling a drink all over a team executive or my clunker of an opening joke to the team (at least I’m consistent no matter the audience).
The main reason I am not going to write about any of this is that if I learned one thing about Gregg Popovich this weekend, it’s that praise legitimately makes him uncomfortable. Pop is cool as . Imagine Lawrence Tierney in Reservoir Dogs with a sense of humor and a moral compass. But he doesn’t like or want the personal attention or ballyhoo. Coaches with a fraction of his accomplishments—five NBA les over 16 years—have written multiple memoirs or insipid “team building” corporate handbooks. He never has. It sounds cliché, but the success of the team, the on-and-off court development of his players (“his sons”), and the chemistry of his assistant coaches are how he defines his own success. Even though he wouldn’t want to hear it, Popovich embodies what InSide Out Coaching author Joe Ehrmann means when he writes that coaches need to be “transformational” instead of “transactional”; in other words, caring about developing players as human beings as opposed to using them to gratify their own egos.
But I will say something about how much this trip meant to John Carlos. Please understand that after Dr. Carlos and I wrote his memoir, we spoke everywhere from high schools and colleges to prisons and Occupy Wall Street. But in the fraternity of pro sports, no one reached out to us. I was stunned teams didn’t respond to my e-mails when we traveled to a given town, but John Carlos was not surprised at all. In the sports world, Carlos had long been treated like he was a toxic element, as pro sports transformed into a global corporate leviathan. There was no room for his voice in an era when political stances, particularly among black athletes, were seen as an hetical to the business of winning games at all costs. Carlos and his family have paid a price for this isolation. He may have no regrets about raising his fist in Mexico City, but that doesn’t make the cost of taking that stand sting any less.
Now Dr. Carlos is 70. His hip is hurting fiercely. The legs that could once run 100 yards in nine seconds strain to keep him upright. Yet this weekend, he was feeling no pain. For 48 hours, John Carlos glowed.
“This experience was great opportunity to talk to a team I admire, and to be up close and personal with a coach I think has special gifts in dealing with young athletes,” he said to me. “It felt great to spread the message that it has to be about more than just the game, the check, the fortune and fame. It’s imperative for me to let them know they can do so much more and just how they can make nonviolent change in such a violent world. I’m just blessed I had the opportunity to be here.”
These last two days meant something soul-deep to Dr. Carlos. I’ve seen him repeatedly be embraced by young people who stand with the anti-racist and human-rights principles for which he sacrificed. To have it welcomed by the model NBA franchise was indescribably touching to witness.
A couple of times this weekend, John Carlos misted over. I asked him what was moving him. He said, “Being treated right…. It just makes it all matter.”
In all seriousness, I'm glad for him.
Very nice piece, here is the article, so you can click on it to give traffic where its due:http://www.thenation.com/article/the...r-john-carlos/
Thanks for sharing Splits.
That's pretty cool
I genuinely didn't know the story,I've never heard anybody talking about him over here
Thanks for sharing
Big deal. Nobody cares what this Socialist radical has to say. He's a bitter old man that is pissed at the United States and favors for a complete and total redistribution of private assets for the exclusive benefit of blacks only. This guy is a radical. Bad idea Pop....Bad idea.
apparently Pop does.
Stuff like these makes one proud to be a Spurs fan. Happy for you guys who actually live there in SA.
This is pretty badass tbh.
Pop's a liberal guy and he's certainly shown an interest in progressivism.
Exposing his players to someone who put a passion for equality and social justice ahead of his own fame or accolades (said differently, someone who got over himself) is very Popovich-ian.
Great story. I wish we had more of it - what the questions were, for example - but an interesting event to think about. It's hard to believe what happened in 1968 was so intensely controversial, that it basically destroyed careers and was tantamount to a revolutionary act. , even Mexico City was undergoing horrible protests just before the Olympics where a lot of people died.
The story of the white dude in the picture, by the way, is equally fascinating. He's rightly third place in the political moment, but he wasn't simply a bystander. By some accounts it's his gloves they're both wearing -- they asked his permission before doing the fist-raised salute, or at least asked if he minded, since it was intruding on his moment, but he was more than for it. He paid the price in his native Australia and was basically redacted in the annals of their sports culture once he got home. He wasn't even mentioned during the Sydney Olympics in 2000, despite them bringing up any athlete of note from that country. It's all an insane story, every bit of it, how the world reacted to two men demanding to be seen as human beings.
Already setting the table to make this season about far more than basketball, wins, championships, etc.
Makes me want to be a better and bigger person, too. Thanks for sharing this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_O...k_Power_salute
he was hated by Ms for introducing racial politics into the Olympics. also see Watts riots, MLK riots, etc, etc. '60s were a crazy decade.
In the picture at the top of the thread, you can see him (Peter Norman) wearing a white circular patch that both Smith and Carlos were also wearing; that patch was from the Olympic Project for Human Rights (which was founded by Dr. Harry Edwards, himself a pioneer in marrying sports and human rights) and Norman agreed to wear it as a symbol of solidarity with the salute.
If those aren't his gloves, he's at least partially responsible for the fact that they're wearing gloves at all, since Carlos reportedly left his gloves in the village and Norman is alleged to have suggested that Smith and Carlos each wear one of Smith's gloves. And the price for Norman was very high, as you suggest: "Despite qualifying 13 times over and being ranked fifth in the world, [Norman] was not sent to the following Munich games, where Australia had no sprinter for the first time in the Olympics."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7674157.stm
That's what this guy's problem is exactly. He's bitter that he never became more influential as a progressive radical. He's turned off that today's athletes don't know who he is and that they are incredibly affluent and famous. He actually believes that he made it possible for blacks to enjoy all the success they achieved in sports today. His passion for whatever he believes is no more important or influential than anyone else's passion. He assumes that today's successful black athletes owe him something, which they don't. He needs to get over himself. Pop is showing incredible hubris bringing in this anti American communist. This guy represents nothing meaningful other than to indoctrinate people into a collectivist and statist mentality. John Carlos HATES wealth and actually believes that today's athletes are being enslaved by money and greed which prevents them from protesting his favorite progressive causes. He fails to understand that most of today's athletes can speak for themselves and don't need people of his ilk to tell them how they should think and what they should support. He's intolerance for other views makes his message extremely hypocritical. Bad idea, Pop. You whiffed on this one.
This is a joke post, right?
Then you must also like the Westboro Baptist Church too. They are passionate about their beliefs and use staged protests to convey their messages. No different from John Carlos. Pop may as well brought them in if the point was to stand strong with your beliefs no matter how steep a price you might pay personally and professionally.
Glad I could enlighten you. I appreciate your willingness to understand the truth about John Carlos.
Better than Porker tbh
Which veteran's funeral did Carlos disrupt?
They disrupt everything. Not just veteran funerals. They are a disgusting lot to say the least but their protests are protected free speech in our country. John Carlos and Pop would be huge admirers if they were really sincere about the virtue of sticking to your beliefs regardless of consequences. It's quite silly to believe this guy is a legitimate social warrior. The fact is that the Spurs had to pay this guy to come and speak to the team. Thanks to liberal progressive contacts throughout the black and sports community, this is the only way this fraud can get an audience. Had he tried to schedule a public presentation at a local venue, nobody would come because the guy is irrelevant and inconsequential in today's modern civil society.
You're really bitter about this guy, aren't you?
Dude just raised a fist.
Or did he do something else to offend you?
but John Carlos is bitter...
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