Scrutinized for his handling of controversies such as Bountygate and Deflategate, this potentially career-defining moment for Roger Goodell looms as the most delicate and complicated of them all.
Harry Edwards, a renowned sociologist of sports and civil rights activist, said it’s important to remember Goodell works for the NFL’s 32 team owners, some of whom have expressed far less enthusiasm for change than Goodell recently has.
“When you’re at the helm of the ship but you’ve got 32 guys behind you wearing a captain's hat, that becomes a very difficult situation,’’ Edwards said. “He’s in a tough political situation.As if the coronavirus pandemic weren’t daunting enough, anger over issues of racial injustice has roiled professional sports. The NFL season starts Thursday night, when the Kansas City Chiefs play the Houston Texans, two weeks since NBA teams began a three-day pause of playoff games in protest of a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting a Black man seven times in the back. Players in Major League Baseball, the WNBA and MLS also refused to play games, fueling speculation about whether NFL players would ever boycott games. “These athletes are not trying to get back to normal,’’ said Edwards, a longtime consultant for the NFL and in particular for the San Francisco 49ers. “This movement is not about getting back to normal. The normal was toxic, and that has to change and that’s what these athletes are saying.’’That has become strikingly clear this NFL offseason, as New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees knows well. On June 3, nine days after George Floyd was killed when a white police officer pinned his knee on the Black man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, Brees agreed to an interview with Yahoo Finance. Asked what he thought of NFL players kneeling again during the national anthem when the season starts, Brees replied, “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.’’ He was repeating something alleged many times before — but not true, according to the players taking a knee — and this time his comments triggered a wave of public anger from Black players. Malcolm Jenkins, one of Brees’ teammates and a leader among Black players fighting for social justice, responded to Brees by video and said in part, “Sometimes you should shut the up.’’ Brees apologized the next day, and a day after that an emotional video featuring Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and several other prominent Black players went viral. The players called on the NFL to condemn racism, to condemn the systematic oppression of Black people and to admit it was wrong in trying to silence the players from peaceful protests. Goodell, who declined to comment for this story, responded with his own video that next day, saying, “We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe Black lives matter.” Although these were words Goodell had never publicly uttered before, it remains to be seen whether he has the political skills, will and courage to bring meaningful change to the NFL. His history, part of which has gone largely unwritten, offers clues.In 1976, Goodell was a senior captain for the football team at Bronxville High School, essentially an all-white school that had never had a Black player. As the season approached, nearby Tuckahoe High School shut down its athletics program because of financial problems and Jim Roberson, a talented Black football player at Tuckahoe, expressed interest in playing at Bronxville. Goodell and Roberson were already acquainted. The previous two years, they had worked summer jobs together at Bronxville High School. Once Goodell left Roberson up on a ladder and another time Goodell painted Roberson’s shoes blue, Roberson told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview.“Roger was a halfback on our football team,’’ said Vito Priore, who coached the 1976 team. “When he heard that Jim Roberson would be willing to come to Bronxville, Roger on his own accord approached me and said, ‘Coach, look, Jim Roberson, no question is a better running halfback than I am. He should be the halfback and I’ll move to tight end.’ So he moved. “His attitude was, ‘What’s best for the team?’ It really didn’t matter whether Jim was a person of color. He was very well-received by our team, and Roger was instrumental.’’ Roberson said he didn’t hear that story until years after he and Goodell had graduated from Bronxville High in 1977. “If a guy had a problem with somebody else’s color, there’s no way in the world a dude makes a move like that,’’ Roberson said. “I’m trying to tell you what kind of people this guy is. He’s just good folk, man. I grew up in the projects. Roger Goodell grew up in a big old house. But he’s been to my house to eat. He’s met my folks. You know, my dad passed away two years ago. Roger Goodell was at the funeral. “His mother took he and I to a recruitment visit at the University of Albany in New York. I stayed with his aunt. Oh, these are good people, man.’’ Roberson lives in England and said he sees Goodell when the NFL plays its annual games in London, and he laughs about the time Goodell left him up on the ladder and painted Roberson’s shoes blue. But Roberson said he catches flak from his Black friends about Goodell. “Oh, hell yeah,’’ Roberson said. “They Facebook me. They email me. Black people refer to him as my boy. ‘Your boy messed up again.’ “But I would never view Roger Goodell as any kind of sellout because of what know I about him in our past together.’’As few as five Black students were enrolled at Washington & Jefferson College when Goodell attended the school between 1977 to 1981, according Michael Pratt, a Black classmate of Goodell's during those years and now a member of the school's board of trustees. “I experienced a number of racist incidents,’’ said Pratt, a star guard on the school’s Division III basketball team. “There were clearly racist attitudes exhibited during the four years I was there. I would defy anyone who was there to say that they didn’t hear or experience the same things.Goodell was among them, according to Pratt. “He always treated me with kindness and respect,’’ he said. “We weren’t close friends, but we were good acquaintances, and he was always a balanced, friendly, hard-working, disciplined student and well-rounded.’’
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