My man Steve Hauschka was a vital voice in this meeting, telling white players that we needed to make a stand together. It took hours, and I mean hours, to talk it through as an entire locker room. People had tears in their eyes and were getting choked up while talking. It made me realize that when it’s all said and done, no matter who we are and no matter what we achieve on the field, we all feel one another’s pain. That’s when I felt that brotherhood cement itself, and I’ll tell you, it was one of the greatest feelings of my life. It was better than winning the Super Bowl. There was something about that meeting and the way we opened up to each other that I will never forget. You sit next to a person for four or five years and think you know them. Then it gets real and you say, “Wow, I never knew you felt like that. Dang, we really are brothers.”
I also felt I was seeing the possibility for men to evolve in this country, and not to hold anything inside. It’s tough to imagine a more macho atmosphere than an NFL locker room. Nobody ever wants to be emotional, unless it’s getting emotional about winning the next game and kicking ass. It’s easier, always, to be hard than to be vulnerable. But when I see teammates of mine, who can knock someone into next week between the lines, shedding a tear when they talk about the world outside the NFL bubble, it really changes your mind-set.
Of course we have our cliques. It’s a big locker room, and you’re drawn to people who think like you, dress like you, come from the same part of the country as you. It’s like, “Okay, I don’t know anybody here, but you’re from Texas, so we got something in common.” But the core that defines this team is the slowly expanding group of us that is socially minded. We understand that we are living in a defining moment. We are at a crossroads when it comes to our youth, their lives, the food they eat, the air they breathe, and the kinds of lives they are going to lead. We understand that because of technology and social media, we can play a role in shaping this future. Ten of us in a room can reach fifty million people. That’s power, and we take it seriously. We also know that this is why the big sports media networks, as well as the NFL, police and scrutinize our platform so hard. They want us to be brands, not men. They want us to keep it to sports—and I get it. It’s not us buying the season tickets or the luxury boxes, but at the end of the day, we’re human beings. We’re not just equipment.
My friends on other teams, they say, “Man, what are you guys doing? You are crazy! We could never do that here.” I’m talking about the best players in this league: top ten players going to the Hall of Fame. They feel constricted, yet they are the ones with the most job security. They love that we can be ourselves. For the majority of NFL players, the only time they really act like themselves is when they’re at home. They can dance and sing in the shower and shimmy with a hula-hoop, with Al Green playing. They see us and ask, “How is Michael Bennett saying whatever he wants to say? I want to do the same shit.” But more players could be themselves if they just tried. It’s like that expression, “You don’t know you’re chained until you try to move.”
If I were traded to another team, there would be no guarantee of a brotherhood. We fought for this as a team, and as long as some of us are in this locker room, it will remain a brotherhood: a political statement of a different way for a team to operate, and a break from the NFL macho “shut up and play” code of self-destruction. This team has taught me that sports don’t have to be toxic. They can be a force for good. What makes sports toxic so often is the greater society, which puts people on pedestals and lets people—from star athletes to Hollywood executives to presidents—get away with toxic behavior.
The essence of sports is beautiful: people coming together to achieve a goal regardless of their color, race, or religion. Everything about that sounds beautiful. It sounds like a healthy marriage. It sounds like commitment. It sounds like dedication. It sounds like passion. It sounds like everything worth rising out of bed for. But it gets destroyed by society, by valuing wealth over play; by professionalizing sports for our kids, which sets them against each other even when they are on the same team; by having locker rooms where people can’t be themselves; by caring about winning more than the process of how you get there. The glorification of those kinds of values is what makes sports toxic. I believe that sports has a role in changing society, from youth leagues to the pros. If nothing else, sports offers us a platform, both culturally and financially, to try to effect the kind of change that can transform entire communities and even shake up the world.
WITHOUT FOOD, YOUR ASS IS GOING TO DIE
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
—Muhammad Ali
I love to eat. But I don’t live to eat. I eat to live. This issue of
