By Jack Gross, Cronkite News
Former Arizona Diamondbacks and Arizona State outfielder Kole Calhoun took to Instagram recently in the wake of Alex Pretti’s death in Minneapolis at the hands of ICE agents. He didn’t mince words in a message written across a photo of Pretti.
“This dude was straight murdered.”
In a country politically divided, sports and entertainment are often viewed as an escape from reality after a long day at work. But is that expectation fair? Should celebrities hold their tongue?
“Every citizen in the United States does not have to have some non-vocational qualification or a vocational qualification in order to speak their mind about politics,” said author and retired political scientist Barry Bozeman, who is a regents’ professor emeritus and Arizona centennial professor of technology policy and public management.
Teams and agents often caution celebrities and athletes to be careful when they speak out about politics. Some are more outspoken than others, but given recent events in Minnesota involving ICE, more and more sports personalities have voiced their opinions.
Curt Schilling is another former Diamondbacks player who spoke out, but on the other side of the argument.
This was not Schilling’s first time speaking out about politics. He was dismissed from an analyst role at ESPN for a social media post described by ESPN as “insensitive” in regards to transgender bathroom laws.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to free speech. But it does not fully shield them from the consequences that could be brought upon them from companies they represent.
Still, Kwame Agyemang, who currently serves as the George and Betty Blanda endowed professor in sport leadership as well as the director of the Future of Sport Institute at the University of Kentucky, said there is often greater impact when athletes voice their opinions.
“Athletes can have an amplified impact when they make political statements because sports are one of the few spaces with massive, cross-demographic attention,” Agyemang said via email.
Sports and politics have always shared an awkward existence. This is hardly the first time athletes or sports personalities have spoken out about politics. Bozeman doesn’t support the desire for separation.
“One of the things that I’ve always thought was kind of understandable, even well-intentioned, but totally unreasonable, is the idea that we (should) be separating sports from politics,” he said. “When was that ever done?”
The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were rife with political undertones, although the site was selected before Adolf Hitler had risen to power. Some Americans protested participation in the event such as Jeremiah T. Mahoney, who was the president of the Amateur Athletic Union.
Mahoney supported a U.S. boycott of the games, and believed that participation in the event would be an endorsement of the Nazi regime.
In January of 1980, President Jimmy Carter called for a boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow during his State of the Union address, and after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
In February of 1980, almost one month after Carter’s State of the Union address, the United States played the Soviet Union in hockey at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.
“I was there at the Lake Placid Olympics when the Americans, primarily college kids, beat the best hockey team in the world.” Bozeman said. “Was that about sports or was that about politics? Look at the flags that were draped around everybody and look at what they said afterwards, and look at what the commentary was.”
Jack O’Callahan, a gold medalist with the 1980 U.S. hockey team, said that “We won at Bunker Hill, and we won at Lake Placid.”
While O’Callahan was wrong about the U.S. winning at Bunker Hill, that battle did serve as a morale and confidence booster for the Americans during the Revolutionary War.
In 1984, and in retaliation, the Soviet Union boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
As the Winter Olympics continue, multiple American athletes have spoken their mind in light of all the current turmoil on their home soil. Team USA freestyle skier Hunter Hess shared his feelings during a press conference.
“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think,” he said. “It’s a little hard, there’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of.”
In response, President Donald Trump attacked Hess on Truth Social, calling Hess a “real loser” and saying that it’s “very hard to root for someone like this.”
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett followed suit on X, telling Hess, “Shut up and go play in the snow.”
“It’s not uncommon for people like that to be criticized,” Bozeman said. “What is uncommon is for them to be targeted by the administration for criticism or by the president.”
Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors coach and former University of Arizona basketball player, has always been outspoken about his beliefs. The Warriors were in Minnesota on the day Pretti was killed, an incident that forced their game against the Timberwolves to be postponed until the day after because of safety concerns.
“There should be an appeal to our better angels to look after one another and recognize what’s happening,” Kerr said. “We’re being divided by media for profit, by misinformation. There’s so much out there that is really difficult for all of us to reconcile.”
While Kerr was playing basketball for Arizona, his father Malcolm was assassinated in Beirut, Lebanon. Steve was born in Beirut.
Malcolm Kerr was a scholar and educator who spent time at UCLA, The American University of Cairo and The American University of Beirut. He was the President of The American University of Beirut when he was assassinated.
Steve Kerr has built a reputation as a sports celebrity who will talk about politics publicly. He’s expressed strong stances in the past on the topic of gun control. Does the life he’s lived and the reputation he’s built add credibility to his words that the average athlete might not have? That’s all about perspective.
“For many average people, Kerr’s consistent, long-term speaking out builds credibility because it signals principle, especially because it’s grounded in lived experience,” Agyemang said. “It won’t persuade everyone, but it does make his advocacy harder to dismiss as a one-off.”
San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama was asked about the killing of Pretti at a post-practice media availability.
“You know, PR has tried but I’m not going to sit here and give some politically correct (answer), you know?” Wembanyama told reporters during media availability after a recent practice. “Every day I wake up and see the news and I’m horrified. I think that it’s crazy that some people make it seem like or make it sound like it’s acceptable; like the murder of civilians is acceptable.”
Wembanyama is not an American citizen. He’s a citizen of France, and has lived most of his life there. He came to the United States in 2023 to play in the NBA.
“Because he’s an outsider one could say that he adds credibility,” Agyemang said. “When someone who didn’t grow up in U.S politics says he’s ‘horrified,’ it frames the moment less as ‘our usual political fight’ and more as a basic moral issue.”
Wembanyama isn’t necessarily protected by some of the same constitutional rights due to the fact that he isn’t a citizen. Wembanyama even acknowledged that it might not be the best personal decision for himself to say anything, and he was careful throughout his remarks to not get too deep into his thoughts.
As intertwined as sports and politics seem to be, experts don’t expect the connections to disappear anytime soon.
“One of the things that would be very interesting would be thinking about redrawing the boundaries of politics and sports,” Bozeman said. “We do so many things that are just so inconsistent, that don’t make any sense, that are not applied equally, and we don’t have any real consistency or even any real expectations about how people should behave in sports.”
Jack Gross expects to graduate in May 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in sports journalism and a minor in political science. Gross has interned as a production assistant at PHNX and a play-by-play broadcaster with the Solano Mudcats. This article is reproduced with permission by Cronkite News.
