Brandon's One Shining Moment

A few days before Thanksgiving, Henry Abbott of ESPN’s TrueHoop offered up a brief story about Portland guard Brandon Roy’s decision to isolate himself from his team during the national anthem.

As the team’s best and most well known player, Roy is ostensibly the leader of the Blazers, and drew criticism from a local Portland newspaper columnist (to whose name and column I choose not to link, because he is, to put it in the most kindest terms I can summon, a moron) for not being a team player.

Two issues came to the forefront, one blatant, one subtle:

1. Brandon Roy is a leader and a leader should stand alongside his troops.
2. Brandon Roy is not patriotic.

Roy’s response to the whole idea was, essentially, “Hey, it’s my deal, and it doesn’t seem to be bothering anyone.”

To which both writers pointed out – a lot of people are going to be bugged, which is, while unknowable, also possibly true. Abbott employed a metaphor about wedding rings to illuminate for Roy why the flag is important, and why people would be bugged by his actions.

Unfortunately for the two writers, it turns out that Brandon Roy’s father was … a Marine. Meaning, of course, that he knows better than either of them the significance of the American flag and the sacrifices associated with it and meaning, of course, that they have about as much right to, well, not lecture, exactly, but inform him of that significance as I do informing Hedo Turkoglu about the significance of Kemal Ataturk’s birthday.

Further, to the first point, that Roy is a leader, notably absent from either story was any quote from a member of the team about how Roy’s actions have affected “team chemistry” or any other such nonsense. In fact, the only quote in either story was from Coach Nate McMillan, who, while admitting he wouldn’t follow Roy’s example, noted it didn’t bother him, either.

So, in essence, we have a complete non-story, fabricated by a columnist who covered the exact same topic a year ago and came to the conclusion that it was just fine and dandy. Then, the non-story is picked up by a national writer who, while taking pains to point out that mandatory anthem observation is silly at best and tyranny at worst, nevertheless provided additional fuel to the fire. (And, to be fair, a number of other blogs and websites chimed in as well).

Thankfully, the story seems to have died an appropriate death, and Roy has continued to live his life without any sort of Abdul-Rauf-type of fallout. (Luckily for Roy, this story came to light when America was not on the verge of invading another country/being attacked by another country/etc, or else both he and the rest of us would have been forced to endure weeks of pundits extolling patriotism and Roy uttering half-hearted apologies, followed by his knitting a flag from used Blazers jerseys (Kevin Duckworth’s making up a large percentage) that he would then raise to the rafters at the Rose Garden and the fans would all clap and cheer and then promptly forget what they were so riled up about to begin with because Greg Oden had dropped yet another entry pass).

All of which leads us back to the Big Lesson we should all Learn From This: namely, that we (those who write about these sorts of topics) ought to take a small pause before penning stories about the relative morality or patriotism or motivations of individuals engaged in professional sports.

I can understand the motivations of the Portland columnist – he was trying to drum up interest in his pathetic column. And, I can understand the motivations of Henry Abbott. He’s an avowed Blazer fan, and Brandon Roy is The Guy on his team, so if a story such as this arises, then he’s interested, and he writes about it.

But consider the repercussions which could have followed: Here you have Brandon Roy, by all accounts a model citizen for the team, who prior to each game chooses to spend a few moments thinking about … well, it’s his business so I won’t bother to guess what it is, but I think we can assume it’s not about if he remembered to delete the Jenna Jameson movie he downloaded onto his laptop.

And, surrounding Roy, we have a team which apparently is unfazed by his actions, and a coach who is pleased with the performance of his player.

But by throwing their spotlight onto this subject, both Abbott and the other writers came close to forcing Roy to abandon his routine and join his teammates in lockstep as they Honored America prior to the game, not because they felt it was the right thing to do (because that would be tyrannical), but because they thought it was the most expedient thing to do.

In essence, then, Brandon Roy, son of a marine, had people tell him: Hey, we get it, Brandon, you like a few minutes of reflection before the game, and that’s cool, but you know what, a few people might be bothered by it, and their uncomfortableness is more important than anything.

Well, screw that. I want to see Brandon Roy to stand on the sidelines twittering (“Chk the crzy dude w/ the Sabonis jersey in 118”) during the anthem. I want to see Chris Anderson compare tattoos with a biker chick during the anthem.

But more than that, I want to see two things:

1) A little more consideration of the inherent importance of a story, and
2) A little more respect for what patriotism truly is

Patriotism, to me, is not 18,000 fans standing in unison. Patriotism is helping your neighbor move, it is educating yourself about the issues in your country, it is standing up for your fellow citizens, and it is a million other little and big things.

Yes, it would be expedient for Brandon Roy to follow his teammates and stand with them at the anthem, but since when is patriotism about expediency?

Further, by asking athletes to conform to a set guideline of Proper Etiquette, we are left with a generation of stars such as Tiger Woods and LeBron James, who never make any comments the slightest bit politically offensive, lest they alienate even one fan.

Maybe a bunch of conformist, hermetically sealed superstars is what today’s society wants, but it’s not what I want. I want someone like Brandon Roy, someone who thinks for himself rather than letting someone else do his thinking for him.

Seems more American to me, anyways.