But if the battlefield was an unfortunate one, the demons that Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf of the Denver Nuggets loosed on sport last week when he refused to stand for the anthem were raw and disturbing. It was all over in a couple of headline days, but once again we saw a case of someone prominent in sport–player, coach, owner, all birds of a feather–wanting to feed off sport until it becomes inconvenient.
He hardly looks or sounds like a rebel. Soft-spoken, he is the frailest of athletes. His countenance is by turns wry and melancholy, set off by a trim little beard that is as symmetrical and calculated as the involuntary shakes he sometimes suddenly displays are random and unexpected–those the result of his Tourette’s syndrome.
But Abdul-Rauf was raised a Baptist in Mississippi under the name of Chris Jackson, and he brought to the fray the familiar zeal of a convert, more anxious to prove himself to those who were to the faith born. When I spoke to him about his religion at length last month, he said: “In Islam, the Koran says that when a Muslim goes about a job, he seeks to perfect that job. So, therefore we shouldn’t let others dictate our emotions. Or how we act. Let me handle it more intelligently.”
And so for months, in violation of the NBA rule, he quietly refused to stand for the anthem. His protest went largely unnoticed; those who did followed that new creed of don’t ask/don’t tell. Only when the NBA–which has succeeded the NFL as the most unforgiving of our leagues–finally called the question, did Abdul-Rauf speak up, intemperately, with the charge that the “Star-Spangled Banner” was a false idol, a “symbol of oppression and tyranny.” And let loose the dogs of law.
After the NBA suspended him, Abdul-Rauf’s supporters claimed the freedoms of religion and expression. The NBA maintained the rights of any private employer to require of its proletariat a token public display of respect for a national totem. Yet in this cross-fire, Abdul-Rauf may have been most impressed that his friend, the Muslim superstar Hakeem Olajuwon, publicly chided him for misunderstanding the tenets of Islam. He had missed the distinction between the adoration of God and the mere respect for nation. When I had interviewed Abdul-Rauf about Olajuwon for an HBO profile, he expressed such profound respect for him that tears welled up. Yes, Olajuwon’s chastisement must have stung.
The unintended consequence of the episode is that Abdul-Rauf – a bright and sensitive fellow who is obviously a most devoted Muslim–succeeded in damaging the perception of his faith. In the United States, Islam perpetually struggles with the ghastly celebrity of Louis Farrakhan and his ersatz Nation of Islam, and with the Muslims’ fundamentalist bombers, a fringe that is too often taken as representative of the great peaceful majority. Now here was Abdul-Rauf, yet another public-relations nightmare, finding tyranny and oppression at home while evidently overlooking them in such libertarian societies as Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Those who did back Abdul-Rauf saw him strictly as a citizen, unbidden to consider his team, incidental to his sport, bereft of any obligation to the public that pays his $2.6 million a season – or some $31,000 per game. As such, Abdul-Rauf v. Anthem follows in the wake of a recent trend where sport is made as mundane as any other business, a poseur that really owes nothing to the constituencies that support it and value it and love it.
Of course sport cannot be placed on a plane with any man’s spiritual self. That’s no argument. Athletes from Branch Rickey to Eric Liddell (celebrated in “Chariots of Fire”) to Sandy Koufax have refused to compete on their holy days, and were commended for their courage. But it is also true that athletes who drag their religion into the arena do so at their peril. Especially where it concerns highly paid public entertainers, Jesus’ admonition about keeping apart piety and commerce still obtains. Render unto the Denver Nuggets . . .
Abdul-Rauf was wise enough to wriggle out of his tangle, but till he did, his rationale to go his own way, to stand apart from his teammates in a playoff chase, seems more an instance of self-righteousness than integrity. After all, if the national anthem is such an obvious symbol of tyranny and oppression, why isn’t the national dollar bill likewise to be denied?
Ultimately, this case represents a more general issue than religion. That was expressed best to me by Bart Giamatti, the commissioner of baseball, before he died in 1989. With a mournful sigh, he said: “The individual, who is sacred under our laws, is now narcissistic.”
So in the end, we are only left to wonder: How does she do it? How does Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott keep all her players from growing mustaches?
