Warning: Activism May Be Hazardous To Your Health
by Abe Wyett
On August 6th, Megan Rapinoe, a longtime standout on the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, stepped up to take a penalty kick in the Melbourne stadium. Her team had played 120 scoreless minutes against Sweden in the round of 16 at the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Now the match had moved on to penalties, with the U.S. leading 3-2. Rapinoe, an experienced penalty taker, took her approach, struck the ball, and sent it sailing over the goal. Turning away, she smiled, even laughed, as she trotted back to her teammates waiting at the center line. It wasn’t a happy laugh. She knew her miss could – and eventually did – cost her team the match.
But that laugh triggered an avalanche of hate on television, radio, and social media. A former World Cup Golden Ball and Golden Boot winner, Rapinoe is also known as an outspoken and fierce advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and for equal pay for women players. She successfully sued the U.S. soccer Federation. In 2016, she took a knee during the Star Spangled Banner before a match against Thailand–a gesture of support for Colin Kaepernick. She refused to attend a White House celebration following the team’s World Cup victory in 2019. She is also openly gay.
These trespasses, apparently, were more than enough to prompt a herd of men to tell her to “shut up and dribble.” Alexi Lalas, former U.S. National Team player turned tv commentator, observed that “this USWNT is polarizing. Politics, causes, stances, and behavior have made this team unlikeable to a portion of America.” Former U.S. President Donald Trump gleefully chimed in, blaming not only the missed penalty but also the decline of America and its values on Rapinoe’s activism. “The ‘shocking and totally unexpected’ loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Many of our players were openly hostile to America – No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA.”
And it wasn’t just men who leapt forward to bury Rapinoe and her teammates. Carli Lloyd, former USWNT star, came down hard on the U.S. women. “I have never witnessed something like that,” she said, after the U.S. women celebrated the scoreless tie against Portugal that lifted them into the second round of the tournament. “There’s a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family, but to be dancing and smiling.” Journalist Megyn Kelly chastised Rapinoe directly: “She poisoned the entire team against the country for which they play.”
Rapinoe isn’t the first athlete to be fiercely attacked for their beliefs. Muhammad Ali took a lot of heat fighting for racial equality, religious freedom, and for refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. The World Boxing Association revoked Ali’s title. The U.S. government tried to jail him for draft evasion. He spent more than three years–and most of his money–fighting the suspension, and defending his rights as a conscientious objector. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court sided with him. Boxing soon followed. Ali regained his title, his prestige, and was eventually awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Several decades after Ali, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick used his celebrity to protest police killings of African American men, when he took a knee during the National Anthem before a 2016 preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. That gesture sparked widespread hostility and outrage. Kaepernick was called unpatriotic, and worse. For his critics, he’d dishonored the flag and the country. “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired,” said former reality tv host turned Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. “He’s fired!” And the NFL owners complied. Kaepernick lost his job. People burned his jerseys.
We’ve seen players attacked for missing big shots, for breaking down in big moments. Bill Buckner received death threats from Boston fans after his first base blunder. In 1994, Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar scored an own-goal against the U.S, leading to a Columbia loss — he was killed days later.
We’ve also seen athletes like Ali and Kaepernick attacked for their political stances and choices. But the hate against Rapinoe is different. First, because she’s a woman. The people calling for her scalp are the same ones who shout “lock her up” and “hang Nancy.” Rapinoe’s missed shot may have cost the USWNT the game–and helped eliminate them from the World Cup. But I doubt many of the folks heaping hate on her had ever cared about women’s soccer before. The miscue was merely an excuse for the rowdies to come down on activism, on wokeism, on feminism–not just because they opposed them, but because these beliefs, and several other progressive views, are actually mortal sins that, summed together, caused that penalty shot to sail high and wide of the net.
Here too there are precedents, of viewpoints translating directly into victories–or defeats. U.S. Mens Ice Hockey coach Herb Brooks told the world that “this just proves our way of life is right” after his team pulled off the 1980 “Miracle on Ice”against the Soviets. For Brooks, Mike Eruzione’s third period goal, giving the U.S. a stunning 4-3 upset win, was concrete proof of the superiority of capitalism over communism. Today, in a bizarre twist, Rapinoe’s critics justify their bigotry and misogyny pretending to be fans and patriots. Apparently political views aren’t just inappropriate for athletes–particularly women athletes. They may be hazardous to their health. And performance. For these haters, fortune no longer favors the brave. It favors the ones with the right beliefs.