It’s a question I know I’ve been pondering this week amid the release of Jon Gruden’s misogynistic and homophobic emails and the reaction to the offensive words written in them: Who would say something more than how awful it was, showing that there’s a brighter future that doesn’t include leaders who use that kind of hateful language?
That person, it turns out, is the always-thoughtful Brandon Staley.
For a few weeks, the first-year head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers has wowed fans with answers at the podium — if you haven’t seen him talk about how the run game fits into the modern NFL, you need to — and what he said on Wednesday when asked about Gruden truly heartened me.
Take a couple of minutes and watch:
“I think what you’ll discover is that we have so much more in common than not” pic.twitter.com/nKfKazUQ4v
— Los Angeles Chargers (@chargers) October 13, 2021
“I think about all the people that were affected by those emails, whether you’re a person of color, whether you’re a person, you know, a gender, your sexual orientation …” he said, “the people that were affected by those emails, that’s who I’m thinking about. Because it’s a sacred mantle for someone to call you coach or someone to call you a leader.”
He went on to talk about trust and kindness and “respecting people you don’t know” and helping bring people together. And that’s it, isn’t it? A perfect reframing about what — and who — we need to think about in this situation, and a future with coaches like Staley at the helm.
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