Soap Box

The refusal by some NFL players to stand up for the performance of the National Anthem at football games the past few seasons has had some far-reaching ramifications. It has ruffled the feathers of much of the population, resulting in less fans in the stands and a somewhat dwindling television audience, plus leaving deep scars in the veterans community.

While few Americans, if any, would question the right of the players to protest or the validity of their cause, it’s the venue they’ve chosen that sparks the heated controversy and only time will tell how much damage will be done to the sport as the fans who pay exorbitant prices for season tickets and those who spend an average of eight to ten hours a week watching three games on Sunday, and two during the week, will sustain the high dollar salaries of the players and the executives who make the decisions.

Many veterans take the players actions as disrespect for the flag, the nation, and the military, in essence, spitting on the valor of generations of Americans who served, especially when there is a color guard standing at attention presenting the colors.

Professional football has overtaken baseball to become America’s favorite pastime over the last few decades with an ever increasing share of the television audience, players’ salaries that would rival the GNP of a third world nation, and the building of billion dollar stadiums, and, as is the case with so many successful professional sports, NASCAR notwithstanding, forgot their humble beginnings and ignored their base, who were faithful until the high cost of tickets and concessions no longer fit into their budgets.

So, will the NFL allow another layer of the faithful to drift away, it seems from Commissioner Goodell’s on again, off again policy they have not made up their mind.

What the whole situation boils down to, is whether the work place is the proper venue for politics and personal protest.

Speaking for myself, I am as about as an opinionated person as you’ll come across, believe that it is my constitutionally mandated right to speak my mind in favor or opposition to any subject I please, but figure that the people who bought the tickets to my shows did not spend their hard-earned money to hear me promote or degrade politics or social issues.

I do over two hundred media interviews every year and if the interviewer is inclined to ask my personal opinion on such matters, I gladly oblige them, and if you have read this column over the past couple of decades you know that I use these pages quite often to vent or gush or whatever about my personal grievances and pet causes.

But, at least from my point of view, my workplace is not a forum for such things, but a place where people come to get away from such things, and football games are the same, a source of escape from the everyday pressures, and people pay dearly for the opportunity.

NFL players are not low-profile citizens without access to the media who would gladly grant interviews, which is red meat to them. In most cases they have but to make themselves available and the controversy loving media would do the rest.

As a lifelong football fan and a season ticket holder, I sincerely hate to see what is happening to the sport, and I fear that the powers that be don’t realize the true jeopardy they face and that they are soon going to have to make up their minds which way they’re going to jump.

It’s just one of those tight corners where somebody is going to be offended, there is no avoiding that fact.

Will it be a handful of players or thousands, or possibly millions of fans?

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

— Charlie Daniels

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