Big Baller Brand Goes Rogue

What would you do if you were 18 years old and drove a Ferrari? What would you do if you were 18 years old entering your first year of college and you already had your own signature shoe brand? For some it appears this type of success and wealth isn’t enough. Liangelo Ball is an 18 year old basketball star coming from a family that has recently become millionaires, because of their endorsed “Big Baller Brand” shoe company endorsed by NBA rookie superstar Lonzo Ball, the oldest son in the family. The two younger sons have felt the full effect of their brother’s basketball success, and furthermore, their increasingly controversial father’s popularity. This family seems to be in sports news every week, and each of the brothers seem to have very bright futures in the basketball world, as they both had full scholarship offers from UCLA, just like the older brother Lonzo had.

Despite this, Liangelo Ball made the decision to steal from a Chinese store on a UCLA team trip to Hangzhou, China. Liangelo Ball along with three other UCLA freshman basketball players were caught on camera shoplifting Louis Vuitton sunglasses from a store in China. The UCLA team was traveling to play preseason games to prepare for their upcoming season, when Chinese police interrupted their international trip. They barged into the team hotel in Hangzhou, China, where the stealing had apparently been committed, and questioned all players without allowing coaches to be present. I want to remind you that nothing has been proven, and I would like to uphold the American ideal of “innocent until proven guilty”, even though the crime wasn’t committed in the United States. However, the idea of “due process” is not a Chinese notion, and the Chinese have economic freedom but not much political and social freedom.
Shoplifting may be considered a petty crime in the US, but in China offenders can face up to 10 years in prison without much representation in the court system. The fact is Chinese officials claim they have video evidence of the players stealing, and they could possibly face 3 to 10 years if proven guilty without the safety of the American judicial system to save them. These players honestly could have committed no crime at all, but the lack of transparency of the Chinese government can’t be controlled by American officials, and these boys are in the hands of the Chinese judicial system.

However, President Donald Trump has reportedly spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and asked him to help resolve the issue involving the players. His recent visit to Beijing is where he discussed the topic, and the talks were summarized as positive. However, this is undoubtedly embarrassing to the UCLA program, and furthermore the United States. Basketball is becoming increasingly popular in China, and a lot of money has been invested into training young children to one day perform in professional leagues across the world. The NBA has mostly stolen the spotlight with Kobe Bryant’s Laker jerseys being the highest selling athletic jersey in China, ahead of superstars like Messi, and Ronaldo (ESPN). The College Basketball industry has recognized the success the professional basketball league has had in Chinese markets, and has sent its teams overseas to spur interest. The success of these ventures has been so profound that Chinese web network Alibaba has bought the rights to play college games in China (New York Times). This upcoming season was going to be the first season streamed abroad, and this news couldn’t come at a worst time. It may have no effect on the success of the new buisness deal, but the way Liangelo Ball has represented the US and college basketball is troubling for his own personal image, and the image of the United States.

Photo courtesy of NBC

Prison Talk

Some problems just seem to never go away, and even when they do it seems more unresolvable problems stem from the solution of the former problem! That is the very predicament the NFL is currently in. Two back to back meetings between NFL ownership and the players association have resulted in absolutely no policy change with regards to the NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. Instead, the comments of Houston Texans owner Bob McNair stole the headlines during the meeting. Instead of positivity and agreement being the result of these meetings, more controversy erupted. He said “We can’t have the inmates run the prison” as an expression to relate the current situation in the NFL. An overall horrible statement in many respects.

First of all relating anyone to an inmate is offensive. Many of these athletes have never even committed a crime, and they’ve put in tireless work to get into the positions they are in today. Granted McNair used a figure of speech, but the absent mindedness for someone of McNair’s position to say this is astounding. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 37.9% of incarcerated people are African American, and according to the Huffington Post, 70% of athletes in the NFL are black. Similarly it hasn’t gone unnoticed that there are no black owners in the NFL. The semantics of the quote coupled with the facts just give off a bad feeling, no matter the true meaning behind his words. These facts merely exacerbate the poor figure of speech McNair used. It has led many to believe that perhaps NFL league owners are finally saying what they really think even if unknowingly.

These are free men, that feel like they are being controlled and owned by ownership. Relating them to inmates is degrading, and the popular feeling throughout the NFL is that owners have not supported the players for years. Conversely in the NBA, players seem to feel much more empowered, and this is likely due to the overwhelming support they garner from their individual organizations. In the NFL the players protest has been extremely unpopular, because it is seen as a business concern. Instead of supporting the players to possibly help the situation, they held a meeting to decide whether they would ban the protests. However, what these owners are failing to understand is that they own the team, not the individual men who are free citizens of the United States who deserve free speech just as everyone else does. NFL players have now been called “SOB’s” by our president, and “inmates” by NFL owners in the span of about a month. The division is widening, and the symbolic relationship between NFL players and their owners is demonstrating that the problems raised by the initial Kaepernick protests are very real. Relating men as inmates furthers the theme that there is an obvious racial divide highlighted by constant misunderstandings that can only be solved through unity.

Instead of raising awareness about the police brutality plaguing the nation and the social divide between blacks and whites in America, the debate is seemingly about whether or not players should even be allowed to demonstrate their personal views. Only a handful of teams have actually attempted to act on the views of players and donate money to charities enacting real change in communities. The goal should be to re-grow relationships between the police force and African Americans, rather than destroying other relationships whilst in debate with the original problem trying to be fixed.

Photo courtesy of SportingNews 

Yes That's His Name, Don't Forget It

Has anyone ever told you that you can’t do something because of the color of your skin? Or because of the origin of your name. The most common one I’ve faced is “ you can’t rap bro, you’re too white” as if my abilities had some type of correlation with the color of my skin, bro. That’s similar to what former NBA player Kenyon Martin tweeted out at current player Jeremy Lin. Lin is most famous for his famous rise to NBA stardom termed as ‘Linsanity’, but most recently his hairstyles have been catching the attention of fans. His latest style is dreadlocks. Martin’s words were “We get it you wanna be black, but the last name is Lin.” Where he essentially critiqued Lin’s style as an attempt to be of another race.

Lin’s response was intriguing and articulate. Instead of firing back with a counter criticism of Martin, he described how his hair was not simply a style, but even more so a symbol. Lin said “ at the end of the day, I appreciate that I have dreads, and that you have Chinese tattoos, because I think it's a sign of respect.” In Lin’s perspective, this emulation of culture serves as an appreciation for its style and heritage. Lin also acknowledged Martin;s right to hold whatever opinions he desired, and later described spreading love and being gracious as his job.

This interaction is largely representative of racial classifications and diversity in contemporary American society. To many, there are strict and rigid divisions between people, and our heritage largely defines us as people and furthermore defines how we should act. However, this action of assimilating to a different style and culture is proof that race is not some biological constructs that determines how people will act and behave, but race is a cultural and social phenomenon that is largely imagined. One of the coolest things about living in the United States is that our interactions are divers, and we are a melting pot of cultures. Jeremy Lin has shown the positive utilizations of living in such a culture by seeking out and respecting a culture we wouldn't typically associate him with.

The color of our skin is not an indicator of our individuality. Instead of creating this rigid division between people I believe we should embrace and explore our differences, so that we can improve and diversify our society.

Photo courtesy of Mass Appeal

Head to Head Contact

We wouldn't be much without our brains. In fact, it is arguably the very organ that distinguishes us as humans. The brain controls and coordinates action and reaction, as well as rationality and emotion. Without our brains we are empty shells of ourselves, brains our undoubtedly our most precious body part. So, as the intelligent humans that we are, we created a sport where we directly put our most valuable organ at risk!

Football is by far the most popular sport in the United States, and of course the very nature of the game is violence and aggression. It's hard to imagine that originally this game was played without any helmets at all! Recently however, the NFL has come under fire for its ignorance of head injuries in their league. Many former players have come forward in recent years and spoken of permanent brain injuries they accumulated during their careers as players. In the past there was next to no head injury prevention, and no concussion screening on players. Of course with developing technology it has been easier to diagnose and treat the head injuries of players, but still there are limitations.

In the movie Concussion, the NFL is portrayed as the bad guy, in a way that they actively seek to blur the research being done on CTE, a serious digenerative disease caused by repetitive brain trauma. In the movie they obviously don’t want the truth to come out because that would hurt their brand. This isn’t so far from the truth in reality. The league claims they support independent research on the issue, but the continue to trivialize the problem that is CTE. The repetitive nature of clashing heads in the sport of football is of increased concern and debate recently, but the evidence clearly supports that the sport has directly caused this type of traumatic injury.

Photo courtesy of Huffington Post 

In the past the league has actively denied the effects football has had on brain injuries, but recent studies by Boston University have clearly put the issue in the spotlight. Out of a study of 91 former professional players, 87 tested positive for CTE. Similarly, two players have committed suicide in the past ten years, and their brains were donated to attributed universities that did extensive research on them. Both brains held traces of brain trauma that can be linked back to their history in the NFL. This problem has been proven, and put in the spotlight in the past decade. Things have improved, and rules have changed to better protect the players. However, the full impact of these findings have yet to be felt.

A handful of influential players have retired early, before living up to their Hall of Fame hype. Furthermore, parents are thinking twice about letting their children play the sport of football. Why put your child at risk of injury, when football incentive isn’t even close to some of the highest paying sports in the country. A youthful shift can be seen toward the sports of basketball, baseball, and soccer where your risk of brain injury is much less than "America's sport", football. Should we encourage our youth to play a dangerous sport like football, despite the clear findings linked with it?

Unity Breeds Solution

Most recently in the world of sports, protest across the NFL have been expanding to multiple teams, even to other sports outside the NFL. Just a week ago the very first MLB player kneeled for the National Anthem signifying his support of the protests that originated in the NFL. Why have these protest suddenly been taken up by a more broader base of players?

Recently divisive comments from the leader of our country, as well as increased incidents of racial discrimination and police brutality, have inspired athletes from different backgrounds to make a stance. This movement originally stemmed from the protests of Colin Kaepernick, but it has really been revitalized most recently. Michael Bennett is a defensive tackle for the Seattle Seahawks, and he recently was held at gunpoint in a Las Vegas night club. This along with president Trump’s comments at an Alabama rally really resonated with athletes across the nation. Trump essentially said that any NFL player who demonstrated their right to free speech was a “Son of a B**** that should be fired”. Trump’s failure to recognize that these players are humans just like of the rest of the citizens that elected him, dehumanizes the players.

Uniformity sprouted up across the NFL, and many of the NFL owners, who had been criticized for not backing players enough on their stance, spoke out against the divisive comments the President made. This doesn’t mean they support the player’s protest but for many it was a step in the right direction, toward a symbol of racial unity in the NFL. Many NFL owners even showed up on the field before the games to lock arms with players in a showing of unity. Among these showings was the Dallas Cowboys, where perhaps the most influential NFL owner, Jerry Jones, locked arms with players on the field for an apparent symbol of harmony. However, his most recent comments have people reverting back to debate and division. He has said he will sit any player who decides to kneel for the national anthem again, essentially refusing his players the right to free expression. Just as the NFL was looking to become a symbol of unity with protests showing a unified desire to improve social and racial disparity in the US, an owner makes a statement like this.

Now the Cowboys have been deemed “America’s Team” since the team’s creation, and for America’s team to stand for something like this is troubling message that we are sending nationally and internationally.

However, other teams have been making strides to fix the issues at hand. 4 NFL teams, Seahawks namely one of them, have held team meetings to discuss what social movements are important to players. Subsequently, the Seahawks have donated 1 million dollars to different organization promoting racial and social justice. This is the type of action peaceful protest can promote, if we continue to unite instead of divide with our speech and our action, we can get a lot accomplished.

Photo courtesy of ESPN