David WhitleyGainesville Sun
Sports got sucked into the culture wars the past week. If the Super Bowl champs have a female kicker next season, we’ll know which side won this latest battle.
That’s one of the amends that have been recommended for the Kansas City Chiefs, who currently employ Harrison Butker as their field-goal specialist. To which most Americans would have said, “Harrison Who?” a week ago.
Butker’s an excellent kicker, but not many people outside K.C. could pick him out of a police lineup. Yet he's rocketed to notoriety thanks to a commencement speech he gave at Benedictine College, a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas.
Butker got up and pretty much sounded like a doctrinaire Catholic. He was down on abortion and absent fathers. He said young women might find more contentment raising kids than entering the workforce.
Cue the meltdown.
The NFL issued a statement letting the world know how horrified it is at Butker’s views. Kansas City’s official government X account put a post notifying everyone that Butker does not live in the city limits.
More than 215,000 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding K.C. release Butker. A Kansas City Star column said the only way to make amends would be for the Chiefs to replace him with a female kicker. I don’t think it was satire.
The firestorm shouldn’t have been surprising. We live in a world where people get fired over a dumb tweet they posted in 10th grade. But the Butker backlash has been so intense “The View” marginally came to his defense.
Note to reactionaries: You should know you’ve gone too far when Whoopi Goldberg advises you to dial down the woke flamethrower.
I would simply advise you to listen to the 20-minute speech, something I suspect 98% of those offering opinions haven’t done. And regardless of whether you think Butker is a hero or a Neanderthal, everyone should agree he has a right to express his opinion.
Aww, who am I kidding?
Everyone is all for that – unless it’s an opinion they don’t like. But the double standard with Butker is setting cancel culture records for hysteria and hypocrisy.
The NFL routinely gives second, third and 10th chances to deadbeats, domestic abusers and other criminals. Yet it never rushes out a press release distancing itself from them.
“(Butker’s) views are not those of the NFL as an organization,” the statement said.
Which views?
That children with absent fathers suffer all sorts of negative consequences? God help anyone who even infers that a certain NFL star fathering 11 kids with five different women might not be an ideal role model.
KC receiver Rashee Rice was arrested last month on eight felony charges related to a hit-and-run accident. He was drag racing his Lamborghini at 119 mph and left a pile of mangled cars, at least one of which was transporting a small child.
Are 200,000-plus signatories demanding his job? Did KC city hall quickly post that Rice does not live there, or a columnist say the Chiefs should bring in a female receiver?
Speaking of KC receivers, Travis Kelce recently threw a huge NIL fundraiser at the University of Cincinnati, which billed it as a “commencement.” Everybody was in their caps and gowns, and the school president presented Kelce with a diploma.
Kelce’s acceptance speech consisted of chugging a beer, spiking the can onstage and saying, “You’ve got to fight for your right to party!”
It was all very on-brand for Kelce. Just as Butker’s speech was very on-brand for a devout Catholic. Just as the Change.org petition was very on-brand.
It implores people to sign it if they “believe in fostering an inclusive society where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”
Everyone except anyone who has traditional religious views shared by hundreds of millions of people.
Hypocrisy isn’t a one-way street, of course. A lot of people wanted ex-QB Colin Kaepernick fired for his national anthem kneel-downs. They steam every time Spurs coach Gregg Popovich weighs in on gun control or immigration or other social justice issues.
A key difference is those protests were made at the workplace, on platforms viewed by millions of people.
Butker spoke to 485 graduates, their families and friends at a private event in a small Kansas town. But based on the reaction, you’d think he gave the State of the Union Address and announced that all U.S. females ages 18-35 will be required to have six children and wear hijabs.
Not that Butker didn’t realize that promoting masculine role models, homemaking and chastity would put him on the cultural firing line.
“These are things we are told in polite society we are not to bring up,” he said at Benedictine.
Maybe next time he should just chug a beer and tell students to get drunk. It would save him a lot of grief.
David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley
