My Favorite Football Stories of 2023 (and Why None of Them Involve What Happened on the Field)
The player who hands out turkeys after being cut; the players who fight for social justice; the wives of CTE victims who shine a light on an illness our football-crazed society wants to ignore
As I’ve written before, I no longer watch the sport I grew up loving. But that doesn’t mean I completely ignore the game of football. In fact, there have been a host of football-related stories over the past few weeks that have caught my interest and pulled on my heartstrings. It’s just that none of them have anything to do with what happens on the field.
Here are my favorite football stories of the year, because they proved again that there’s much more to the sport and people who play it than wins and losses:
The former star who handed out turkeys after being cut
Shaquille Leonard’s story is so familiar in the NFL, where success is most often fleeting, and players who are on top one moment find themselves out of job the next, their bodies bruised and broken by the brutality of the sport, their celebrity all-so-quickly forgotten.
After being named to three All-Pro teams in his first four years in the league, the Indianapolis Colt fell victim to injuries and was cut by the team last month. But despite the development being "very tough, mentally, physically and emotionally," Leonard refused to sulk or become embittered in its immediate aftermath. Instead, he did what so many NFL players do in the communities where they play: He gave back, in this case at a local Thanksgiving food drive.
As this Yahoo! story explained:
“Leonard spent roughly two hours handing out turkeys, interacting with Colts fans, signing autographs and hanging out with a few of his now ex-teammates, according to the Indianapolis Star.”
What the future in the game of football holds for Leonard remains undetermined, and as is so often and sadly the case with the game’s stars, he and his career will likely be forgotten by fans as soon as it ends. But his selfless generosity on the worst day of his professional life will always make him a star worth remembering in my book.
Players walk the walk with cleats for a cause
As violent as the sport of football is, many who play it are much more familiar with a different type of violence that plagues the communities in which they grew up: gun violence.
Ten players representing five NFL teams are doing what they can to bring attention, and solutions, to that epidemic through the My Cause My Cleats initiative. Brian K Robinson Jr., Daron Payne, Darrick Forrest Jr., Percy Butler, Khaleke Hudson, Oshane Ximines, Samuel Williams, Martin Emerson Jr., Antonio Johnson and Snoop Conner are donning cleats in support of the Everytown for Gun Safety nonprofit and the broader effort to end gun violence, which particularly infects and devastates disadvantaged communities that produce many of the game’s biggest stars.
Hudson lost his father and a cousin to gun violence. As he reflected in a post on Commanders.com
It's something that has been in my life a lot growing up. I have a lot of friends, family who lost their life from gun violence, innocent family and friends.
Regardless of the teams they represent or their skills on the field, these 10 players are the ones I now root for hardest, and I wish them all the best both on and off the field.
Students will learn the story and sacrifice of Colin Kaepernick
Colin Kaepernick will never wear a Super Bowl ring (though he came awfully close in 2013), but he will wear something much more meaningful and powerful: the legacy as a champion for social justice.
And now students across the country will learn his story, and his sacrifice. As the Washington Post reported last week:
The latest version of a groundbreaking African American studies course for the nation’s high schools says students should learn about professional football quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his decision in 2016 to kneel during the national anthem as a protest against racial oppression and police brutality.
Regardless of what people think of Kaepernick as a person or player, or the approach he used to bring attention to the issues of racial oppression and police brutality, no one can legitimately argue that he was on the wrong side of history. The stand (and knee) he took in 2016 as the nation continued to shrug at each instance of a Black life lost at the hands of police misconduct was vindicated in 2020 when we were all horrified by the killing of George Floyd. That killing, caught in excruciating detail on video for the world to see, was the ultimate proof of what Kaepernick had maintained during his protests in 2016 — there was and is a systemic illness of racism in our society and policing that America has for too long turned a blind eye toward. In 2016, Kaepernick said through his actions that enough is enough, and in 2020 millions across the country said the same thing through the Black Lives Matter protests. If only we had listened to him four years earlier, if only America had decided it cared as much about the lives of Blacks caught in the grip of racial oppression as it did about empty words in a song.
As a child who loved watching football, I judged players like Kaepernick only by what they did or didn’t do on the field. Thanks to this African American studies course, our students will learn that Kaepernick was much more than a football player, and that like so many social justice activists before him, he made an impact on our society that far exceeded anything he accomplished on the field.
The first wives club of CTE
As the latest Heisman Trophy winner was crowned this weekend, the Washington Post produced a poignant story about the wives of former Heisman winners and their growing sisterhood as women who have seen the toll of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) on the men they love.
It was a sad story, but also an important one with at least a small silver lining, as these wives find a common bond and source of support through their grief and often lonely struggles of watching this cruel disease upend the lives of players long forgotten once their ability to entertain us on the field ended.
As Judi White-Basch, the wife of USC legend Charles White, who died this year, put it:
Everybody has got the same story. Everybody that I was talking to, they had this same shame and pain, like: ‘All this time, I had to hide. I had to protect. I had to pretend.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m not alone.’
And the fact that these Heisman wives are willing and able to speak out about the uncomfortable truth of a game that has become our national religion — that the price for our entertainment is too often the slow, painful loss of their loved ones — will hopefully have the ultimate effect of making the game safer, making those who play it (along with their loved ones) more aware of its risks, and preventing more from ultimately suffering this fate.
As powerful as the words of these wives were in the article, what also hit home with me was the following reader comment, because it so accurately reflects my own experiences and feelings about the sport:
I've always loved watching football. Games were a highlight of my fall and Tuesday and Wednesday nights felt empty because of the lack of games on TV. But over the last few years I've learned more and more about CTE. A great player I knew personally in college (Notre Dame) killed himself – no doubt an outcome of his CTE. This year I've watched no games, even for a minute. I can't imagine ever watching one again. Meanwhile, the increasing mania for football among the American public is another symptom of a society in trouble.
While I do agree with the reader’s sentiment about football mania indicating a troubled society, I am also heartened by these stories and the knowledge that so many who have played and experienced the effects of the game first-hand are doing their part to make our society a kinder and more just and empathetic place.
Thanks Craig! Love your writing and this story was exceptional! Go 9ers!