President Michael Bidwill of the Arizona Cardinals stands behind a curtain before a game at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Sports & Politics Intersect: NFL owner denies double standard over who can talk about politics

By Fidel Martinez, Jason Clinkscales, Phillip Barnett | Last updated 10/5/18

"I’ve known Brett since I was 16 years old. We were high school football teammates. We’ve grown up in life together." - Michael Bidwill, Arizona Cardinals owner

On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that Brett Kavanaugh would be his pick to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Anthony Kennedy. That same day, the Arizona Cardinals published an endorsement of the nomination on its website.

The press release notes that Kavanaugh and Michael Bidwill, the Cardinals' owner, went to private school together, and that the latter led an effort to get more than 130 former classmates to sign a letter endorsing the jurist. Among the signees was New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who also attended the same private high school.

"He is a man of high character, high intelligence, excellence and independence," the letter seconded. "We want to speak up and show our support as former classmates and long-time friends.”

An NFL higher up endorsing a Supreme Court nominee isn't new — the Denver Broncos' John Elway did the same with Neil Gorsuch, who coincidentally went to the same private high school as Kavanaugh, Bidwill and Cashman.

That Bidwill used the professional team he owns as a platform to make a political statement in the midst of the NFL's still ongoing public relations nightmare that is the national anthem debate was not lost on a lot of people — a cursory Google search of Bidwill's name will yield articles like this one, this one, and this one calling him a hypocrite. For his part, Bidwill defended his actions during a conservative radio interview.

“People are saying stick to sports? You know what? We ask our players 20 days a year — game days — to restrict their statements," he argued without actually addressing the charges of duplicity. "The rest of the days, we want our players to get engaged in the community.”

So what should sports fans know about Kavanaugh?

For starters, that he's one of them. So much so, in fact, that Kavanaugh has repeatedly used sports analogies to explain his interpretation of the law and the Constitution. At a 2015 talk held in Chicago's Marquette University, for example, he used the infamous Dez Bryant catch to try to explain his views on the separation of powers as outlined in the Constitution. Similarly, in a 2010 dissenting opinion, Kavanaugh argued that SeaWorld shouldn't be held liable for its killer whales murdering its trainers.

“(The Department of Labor) cannot reasonably distinguish close contact with whales at SeaWorld from tackling in the NFL or speeding in NASCAR," Kavanaugh argued.

Sports fans should also note that Kavanaugh loves baseball, specifically the Washington Nationals. Like a lot — he reportedly racked up as much as $200,000 in debt for Nationals season tickets.

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This week in sports and politics history: South Africa returns to FIFA-sanctioned soccer as apartheid ends

Alan Rothenberg, (R) head of the technical inspection team from FIFA shares a laugh with former South African president Nelson Mandela (center) and Nconde Balfour, South African Minister of Sport during a meeting in Cape Town on March 13, 2000. ANNA ZIEMINSKI/AFP/Getty Images

"[It’s] more than a game. It can create hope where there was once despair … this game made us feel alive." - Nelson Mandela on soccer

South Africa lost the 2006 bid to host the World Cup 11-12 because of a single abstaining vote. The country turned things around and proved that South Africa had the infrastructure and sponsors needed to host in 2010. However, there was a time in which it looked like South Africa would never play in a FIFA match again.

In 1964, the South African whites-only football association was suspended from FIFA, effectively keeping the country from competing in any international football matches because of the racist policies of the National Party. The National Party was an all-white government that installed a system of legislation called apartheid, which forced the wealthy, predominantly white minority to live in separate areas from the black majority. These laws were enacted in 1948 and lasted until 1991 when international and internal pressures forced South Africa to dismantle the laws and the regulations that made up apartheid.

With the repeal of apartheid, the whites-only rule for the national soccer team was also repealed, and South Africa was readmitted to FIFA on July 3, 1992. On July 7, they played their first FIFA-sanctioned game in nearly 30 years at Kings Park Stadium in Durban, besting Cameroon 1-0.

“We were kings that night. We’d not just beaten a Mickey Mouse team, but the Indomitable Lions of Africa, the World Cup quarterfinalists,” recalled Theophilus “Doctor” Khumalo, who scored the goal for Bafana Bafana.

Much like it is in many countries — even here in the United States — sports were a huge part of the national identity and played a part in racial politics. Nelson Mandela, who would become South Africa’s president after apartheid from 1994-1999, used rugby and soccer to help unify both sides of the country. Mandela was among those who helped contribute to South Africa’s winning World Cup bid in 2010.

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