San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich usually doesn’t have much time or much to say to reporters.
At the Spurs media day Monday, Popovich gave the media more than expected when asked if he supports the national anthem protests started by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Popovich talks to his point guard Tony Parker (Photo credit: Getty Images)
“I absolutely understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, and I respect their courage for what they’ve done,” Popovich said. Typically this is where his response might end, but the Spurs coach continued:
“The question is whether it will do any good or not because it seems that change really seems to happen through political pressure, no matter how you look at it. Whether it’s Dr. King getting large groups together and boycotting buses, or what’s happened in Carolina with the NBA and other organizations pulling events to make it known what’s going on. But I think the important thing that Kaepernick and others have done is to keep it in the conversation. When’s the last time you heard the name Michael Brown? With our 24/7 news, things seem to drift. We’re all trying to just exist and survive.”
Surely reporters in attendance thought his comments were now over. Next subject. But Popovich continued to offer his opinion on the matter.
“It’s easier for white people because we haven’t lived that experience. It’s difficult for many white people to understand the day-to-day feeling that many black people have to deal with. It’s not just a rogue policeman, or a policeman exerting too much force or power, when we know that most of the police are just trying to do their job, which is very difficult. I’d be scared to death if I was a policeman and I stopped a car. You just don’t know what’s going to happen. And part of that in our country is exacerbated by the preponderance of guns that other countries don’t have to deal with. It gets very complicated.
At this point, when somebody like Kaepernick brings attention to this, and others who have, it makes people have to face the issue because it’s too easy to let it go because it’s not their daily experience. If it’s not your daily experience, you don’t understand it. I didn’t talk to my kids about how to act in front of a policeman when you get stopped. I didn’t have to do that. All of my black friends have done that. There’s something that’s wrong about that, and we all know that. What’s the solution? Nobody has figured it out. But for sure, the conversation has to stay fresh, it has to stay continuous, it has to be persistent, and we all have a responsibility to make sure that happens in our communities.”
This has got to be the most anybody has ever gotten out of the legendary coach. And it’s clear that he feels very strongly about this issue. Also important to note is Pop’s claim that he, as a white person in America, can’t understand the issue.
Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs (Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images)
The Spurs coach also didn’t try to offer a solution, because he doesn’t have one, although he does believe conversation needs to stay fresh, continuous and persistent.
Perhaps this is the reason people always try to pry a response out of Pop. Every now and then, he will surprise you and give you a lot more than you ever expected.
The full transcript of his comments can be found here.