Compilations of “the most politically influential and outspoken” athletes crop up here and there occasionally. They list activists like Billie Jean King, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos, as well as overpaid, modern, but still outdated ones like Megan Rapinoe and Colin Kaepernick. That these individuals speak for the aspirations of most sports fans is a bit of gaslighting.
Instead, the issues people care about today are being addressed by outspoken athletes and coaches with their fingers on the pulse of the people and the threats against our independence. The era of defining “influential” as illiberal has ended.
Regurgitated rankings and commentaries assert that sports are one of America’s last public spaces and claim that athletics are never far from politics — but then banish dissidents of the ruling bureaucratic statism from the press box.
Fabricating political celebrity and aggrandizing the pantheon of Marxist-leftist athletes leads to omissions of what is truly great. Our creator endowed us with inalienable rights, and the greatest influencers are those who honor the primary leadership of God, seek the truth, and uphold traditional American values.
As the “big game” comes up, politically impactful athletes and coaches are putting themselves on the line:
After three straight wins, Washington State’s head football coach, Nick Rolovich, and four assistant coaches were fired all at once on Oct. 18, 2021, after they refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. They had been committed leaders for WSU football and its famous run-and-shoot offense and Rolovich was such a valued fit with the evergreen state’s sports culture that in 2021 he was the highest-paid employee in the state of Washington.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and university administrator Pat Chun inserted the government into an athletic organization in an unprecedented manner by cracking down on five coaches’ private medical choices. Their actions jolted a large fan base in the Northwestern U.S., impacted real families, and needlessly disrupted the season. Inslee blamed the coaches, who had done nothing wrong.
Rolovich sued WSU for civil violations, including a breach of his work contract. Three counts go to trial on Dec. 9, 2024.
During the 2022 football season, Rolovich became a volunteer assistant for a high school football team in San Francisco. The program won a state championship.
Shot mandates did more harm than good, and violated rationality. Rolovich’s sporting accomplishments and personal integrity make him a hero among the millions of Americans who face attempted persecution.
The sport that gave us “Let’s Go Brandon,” NASCAR automotive racing, has also given us Rep. Austin Theriault from Maine’s District 2.
This year, Theriault is running for election to the U.S. House of Representatives. He roared to victory in 100-lap NASCAR races from Daytona to Michigan; now he wants to ensure equal rights (rather than DEI), check the powers of bureaucratic agents, reduce the economic drain on rural Americans, end the drug overdose crisis, obtain justice through law and order, and control runaway spending of the citizens’ taxes.
Riley Gaines, an All-SEC, three-time NCAA Championship qualifier from the University of Kentucky has pumped new life into sports with her speeches calling for sanity amid institutional infringements of Title IX rights.
Gaines is speaking out in the face of the war on fair competition in sports, the increasing number of injuries resulting from mismatched opponents, and the harm done to the culture and athletes barred from growing up the way nature intended. As a result, she has been denigrated and physically assaulted on multiple occasions.
She is an inspiration to women, athletes, and the American people.
Burgess Owens commands the same respect in the halls of Congress as he did on the football field. While on the gridiron he achieved Rookie of the Year, played as the defensive captain for five years with the New York Jets, and made a Super Bowl Championship with the Oakland Raiders. He was a source of inspiration even before he was a 1st round draft pick, Jets interceptions leader, and NFL All-Pro. Since the end of his gridiron career, he has traveled the country to share a message of “optimism and hope…speaking of the intrinsic principles that underline the foundation of our American way of life.”
During the Obama “you didn’t build that” years, Owens was on radio shows decrying the failing record of “Great Society” programs to reduce poverty or improve family outcomes. In 2021, he became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Utah. In 2024, he is already off to a fast start exposing open borders policies that severely affect economic opportunities and living conditions for Americans in states including, but not limited to, Utah.
To hear Rep. Owens speak is to realize he belongs with the greats of both football and American oration.
Ian Smith owned a gym in New Jersey that he wouldn’t shut down for any man’s orders. The self-proclaimed “meathead” racked up $1.2 million in COVID-19 “fines” and reminded us what is to be American.
Smith, who has also paid his debt for acts he committed long before, then received 38.3 percent of the vote in the Republican primary election for his state’s 3rd House District.
Smith is the author of Find Your Hill and gives speeches around the country on overcoming challenges and fighting for what we believe in.
Jason Whitlock, a former Ball State college football player, is the host of Fearless with Jason Whitlock.
Whitlock’s takes on values make riveting reads and enjoyable listens. He parted from ESPN for many of the same reasons that 5 million people have left Democrat states. The attacks he has withstood indicate his independent message is over the end zone.
Once a safety for Southern State University football, Tommy Tuberville was the Auburn University head football coach with the most wins against the University of Alabama. Tuberville made his mark through his success, class, and values.
He earned the Alabama Republican Party’s nomination for the Senate in 2020, and contested incumbent Doug Jones. Early that year, the “systemic change” of “bundled payments” required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) gave the federal government a digitally integrated system that shoveled thousands of dollars per COVID-19 patient to clinics and hospitals. As the healthcare business now revolved around Washington, D.C., providers were hard-pressed to refuse the payouts, disincentivizing professionals from raising their voices against COVID-19 flim-flam.
Tuberville won election to a seat needing serious statesmanship to restore America to the rights and values that made it free, and he has risen to his calling, standing to demand that the sanctity of life be protected by the U.S. military if DOD personnel wanted to get their requested raises and promotions.
The Alabama senator has made American rural workers, fiscal responsibility, the Second Amendment, and border security his top issues, joining fellow sportsmen in defending our liberties.
Career leader in Grand Slam victories, Serbian Novak Djokovic was the story of the year at the 2023 U.S. Open. Finally allowed to travel and compete again after more than a year of being ostracized for his refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Djokovic broke records and earned his 24th Grand Slam title. A den of power-hungry officials who knew nothing about physical performance and health and had restrained his athletic career from progressing, watched him win.
Djokovic glorifies God above the institutions of men, and used his racquet to set the tennis world right from foolhardy judgments of who is “diseased.”
Novak Djokovic only has “sick” tennis strokes, as the kids say.
Danielle Rabkin ranked 325 worldwide in CrossFit for her age group and then became a trainer and owner of Golden Gate CrossFit. She strives to tone up the American republic too, exposing inequalities that ruin what Americans loved about our society’s fair playing field.
In 2020, she asked, if politicians can go to the gym amid lockdowns, why couldn’t her customers?
Today, she’s still pointing out hypocrisy and is asking, if Chinese government visitors deserve a good place for doing business in the streets of San Francisco, why don’t American citizens?
As both the youngest and oldest world surfing champion, Kelly Slater is nearly synonymous with his sport. Slater took a strong stance against ostracizing competitors and friends over fear-driven absurdities and faced a showdown with the Australian government after he was denied entry for not receiving the COVID-19 jab.
Slater makes an honorable mention here, even though his defiant swell broke and he went with the flow. He wouldn’t be the greatest of surfers without that mellow.
Paul Stastny, a forward on Hockey’s Winnipeg Jets, is familiar with tyranny. His Hall of Fame father, Peter Stastny, defected from the former Czechoslovakia to Canada. Paul spoke on the matter beautifully:
Being the son of immigrants that left a communist country to come to Canada and have a future where they had their own decisions and do-what-they-want type of freedom is something that’s always been instilled in me … And then I know what Canada was like, and I can see where Canada is going, and I think that’s what scares me.
Knowing what communists did in Slovakia, Paul donated to Canada’s freedom convoy in 2022.
Meanwhile, Don Cherry, a Boston Bruins player and head coach found his fullest calling in the sport, broadcasting. He backed the movement saying, “I am 100% behind the truckers … They are salt of the earth and the heartbeat of the country…. I did not tell anybody else what they should do and would never tell anybody what they should do. It’s up to them.”
California festers with the worst homelessness, education, and poverty in the U.S.
Steve Garvey, a recipient of the Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award, is ripping the cover off that curveball with his approach to educational choice and economics. While Adam Schiff wants to continue Democrat rule, Garvey points out that in this administration, for the first time, more people are leaving than coming to California because they can’t afford to live there.
“This is a direct result of our career politicians in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. continuously passing foolish laws and increasing taxes and fees, resulting in higher costs or our basic needs,” Garvey said. “I will take a stand against out-of-control inflation and be a voice for the middle class and working families.”
There’s no dodging that Americans are swinging for stronger job creation for pay with real purchasing power.
Conor McGregor is a standout Mixed Martial Arts fighter whose convincing Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) wins lifted him to international stardom. He was the first fighter ever to attain both the Featherweight and Lightweight Championship belts in the UFC, and he did the same in Cage Warriors.
McGregor, who is from Ireland, has received consistent support from the Irish people. He also has many American fans, and given the similar threats to both Ireland and the U.S., McGregor’s political activity in Ireland tends to matter in the U.S.
McGregor’s motivations are expressed simply: Protect Ireland. He says no citizens of a country are safe if there is no dedicated, operational task force to “assess all entrants.” McGregor, who has teased a run for the Irish presidency, would form one immediately to address this “real lapse in national security.”
Citizens of many countries can relate to the violence committed by military-age, male foreigners arriving illegally in waves numbering in the thousands.
“NOT GOOD ENOUGH,” says McGregor of the Irish government.
At the retirement ceremony for the career NBA leader in steals and assists, John Stockton spoke with keen interest on “the powers of healing” shown by Jazz training room staff.
He said they had “kept my old body together” for 19 seasons on the court. Twenty years later, Stockton’s familiarity with chiropractic led him to write an amicus letter to a court in Washington, D.C. in support of one of his friends.
Janet Buhler, the wife of Craig Buhler, who had treated Stockton for enhanced recovery for “thousands of hours” in his Jazz career, had exercised her American right to protest an election that was marred by mail-in ballots and other anomalous forms of voting under the pretense of a “health emergency.”
Like many practitioners, Buhler was suspicious of the hokum and malarky that went on in the 2020 election. So she made her way to D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, only to confront a month’s sentence in prison. Having known Janet for decades, Stockton wrote of her character as kind and gentle. Janet was nevertheless handed a 30-day sentence for her political expression at the people’s house.
Interest in physical longevity and healing surprised us all by becoming linked with high political controversy. Yet realizing life is led by God, Stockton, a Catholic, appeared on His Glory to speak the truth, even as the FBI was watching Catholic congregations.
Gonzaga College suspended Stockton’s season passes for his noncompliance with mask and vaccine mandates. When the mandate was later lifted, Stockton declared he wouldn’t be coming back to Gonzaga basketball and noted he would be reconsidering his giving to the college.
Stockton has continued to speak out through independent channels to avoid Big Tech censorship. He has appeared as a guest on dozens of podcasts.
More Americans are becoming inspired to get “on the court,” openly glorify God, share the blessing of health freedom, pen writings for justice, and direct our dollars wisely — all qualities amplified by the inspirational work of John Stockton.
An NFL champion quarterback and 4-time MVP with the Packers, Aaron Rodgers was voted by his Jets teammates as their “most inspirational player” — even while being out with a season-ending injury.
Rodgers’s keen vision downfield gives him an independent steak. Even without playing in the Super Bowl this year, his observations and comments remain insightful, no matter the blitz that vindictive characters may rush at him.
America is in a “declipression,” — the “decline plus oppression” that is being foisted on America.
Athletes are lending their prowess to give the nation a hand up out of the morass. Let’s move the ball for election integrity and score against antihuman global war, inflating prices, car bans, illegal migration, and all anti-American opponents.
Game. On.
