Sometimes I think about why I invest so much time in sports.  Part of me subscribes to the A Bronx Tale thinking on sports.  There’s a scene in which the mob boss played by Chazz Palminteri is talking to the kid he’s taking under his wing.  The kid is distraught because Mantle’s Yankees lost on a walk-off home run against the Pirates in the World Series, prompting Palminteri to say, “Mickey Mantle don’t care about you.  Why care about him?”  Again, I love sports, but Palminteri has a point.  I may love the Lakers, but I promise you Kobe and Pau aren’t losing sleep over anything going on in my life.  Neither called me when the job market swallowed up my position a little over a year ago.  So now, when push comes to shove, I may miss games here and there that I would have invested countless amounts of time and energy into in the first 25 years of my life.  Sports are fun.  They’re a great escape.  But at the end of the day, as Jamal Mashburn would say five times in a ninety second span, sports are entertainment.  

And then this last week happened.  I was reminded that sports matter.  Given that I still spend parts of my week coaching, that I have lived and died by sports teams and athletes throughout most of my life, one would wonder how I could forget that sports matter.  But I did.  Now, that’s not to say that the Lakers winning a championship or Tiger Woods winning a tournament is going to affect my life or that of anyone outside of the inner circles, but there are times when sports will have the eyes of the whole nation or world on them.  And that is why sports matter.

Here’s what happened to bolster my point, the short version.  Arizona passed a law enabling racial discrimination against Latinos.  Don’t let anyone’s explanation of reasonable suspicion fool you.  The police will be able to and sometimes have to racially discriminate as a result of the passage of SB 1070.  In response, the Phoenix Suns wore their “Los Suns” uniforms on Cinco de Mayo to play the Spurs.  A nice nod to the Latino community, but nothing out of the ordinary given the day.  The jerseys aren’t new and have been worn during Hispanic Heritage month.  Except the Suns released a statement that the move was in response to the law and in opposition to it.  And that’s where the drama began.  The Suns do have some Latino fans, but the Suns play in Arizona, a state where John McCain may lose his Senate seat for being “too liberal.”  Let that sink in for a moment.  John McCain:  Too liberal for Arizona voters.  So the Suns decided to do what the organization thought was right.  Say what you want about the penny pinching Suns ownership over the past decade, but this was a gutsy move in the face of several of the richer Suns fans.  

While the “Los Suns” and the move’s recognition by President Obama were big, the move by Arizona Governor Janice Brewer was what prompted this column.  Governor Brewer responded to the Suns jerseys by writing an op-ed piece for . . . ESPN.com.  That’s right, Governor Brewer wrote an op-ed piece, defending SB 1070, for ESPN.com.  Sports matter.

I started thinking about other politically significant moments in the history of sports.  Given the nature of what’s going on in Arizona, the NFL’s stripping Arizona of the Super Bowl for not recognizing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day first comes to mind.  But there are other prime examples in the last century.  Trial of the century?  O.J. Simpson.  The United States recovers emotionally from 9/11 at Yankee Stadium.  Big move made by U.S. President Jimmy Carter during the Cold War?  Boycotting the Olympics in Moscow.  Magic and Larry bring race to the forefront of American discourse.  Muhammad Ali and the UCLA Basketball Team protest the Vietnam war.  Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier.  Jesse Owens laughs in the face of white supremacy with Hitler watching on in the heart of Nazi Germany.  Going globally, just watch as warring factions call a weeklong truce to support their country in a World Cup every four years.  Or terrorism being put on hold in the Philippines so everybody can watch and enjoy a Manny Pacquiao fight.

And now we have senators urging Major League Baseball to either move next year’s All-Star Game away from Phoenix or for the Major League Baseball Player’s Association to boycott the game.  The Governor again has staunchly advocated to prevent such a move from happening.  The game is a tourist attraction and an economic boost for one of many states hurting since the 2008 Recession hit.  The Governor is making the All-Star game a focal point and a political battle ground.  

What’s more, I’m sure you are thinking of some glaring omissions from my above list of politically significant sports events.  Why?  Because sports matter.

P.S.  Thanks for sticking with RW despite my hiatus to give my paying career prospects some much needed attention.  This short piece is a welcome back.  More to come.