Kirk Triplett wouldn’t call the Black Lives Matter movement his new passion.
He and wife Cathi’s devotion to the cause of adoption will likely remain his priority because that’s how they brought two of their four children into the family.
But those two worlds intersected after George Floyd’s May 26 death while in custody of the Minneapolis police. The Triplett’s youngest son Kobe is African-American, his biological mother Japanese, his biological father Black.
Watching the ensuing protests worldwide, Triplett realized the discussions he needed to have with Kobe, 18. Triplett also knows that the message is not part of the PGA Tour Champions, which has no Black players among its regulars, and he thought it needed to be.
So Triplett put a Black Lives Matter sticker on his PING golf bag for the $3 million Bridgestone Senior Players Championship, which opens Thursday at Firestone Country Club.
“I’m not trying to make a big statement,” Triplett explained Wednesday. “For the first time I was kind of motivated that I don’t think we’re thinking enough about this in the circles that I travel in. I think we see it. We’re well-read. We understand. But I don’t think things are going to get accomplished until the circles that I travel in really understand it better. Sometimes it’s too easy to really not even think about it. I guess that’s why I put it on there.
“This message isn’t out here. It’s in other sports, it’s in the NBA, it’s in MLS, it’s in the women’s soccer league, it’s in the WNBA. I don’t see it in golf, so I put it on there.”
Kobe was 10 days old when the Tripletts took him in. He and Cathi had already adopted Alexis, now 20, a Latino who some prospective parents passed over because her 40-year-old biological mother had used methamphetamines. After three in vitro attempts, Cathi Triplett became pregnant with twin boys, Conor and Sam, now 24, but subsequent treatments failed as they tried to expand their family.
Staying at home with Champions Tour events canceled during the coronavirus pandemic gave Triplett time to think about things, he said.
“Being at home, reading the news a lot … A lot of times things in the world don’t affect me very much, but the protests and the stuff affected me this year,” Triplett said. “Not just in the sense of what’s going on in the world, but in the sense of ‘Oh, these are discussions I need to have with my son.’
“I thought, ‘Well, I don’t have to have the same discussion with my other sons.’ Since the discussion is going to be different, I don’t think that hits home and resonates with people unless it’s them.”
Triplett isn’t sure how Kobe feels about the sticker on his bag. Triplett said Kobe, a high school senior in Scottsdale, Arizona, might not like the attention if classes were in session.
“I don’t know, he doesn’t always share. He’s a teenage boy, he likes to be under the radar,” Triplett said. “I think if there was a lot of publicity surrounding this or publicity that affected him or if he was in school, he’d be uncomfortable with it. But he’s not, he’s learning from home and he’s a pretty quiet kid. When we have these conversations, I know he’s listening, but teenagers don’t always let you know that they’re listening.”
Triplett said he didn’t wait until the protests began to bring up systemic racism with Kobe.
“We’ve been talking to him for many years about the fact that, ‘You may get in some situations where you don’t understand why people are coming at you the way they are,’” Triplett said. “He’s experienced it a few times, so he knows it. He doesn’t see it I don’t think on the scale that some people … depending on which part of the country they live in or what their economic situation is. Your economic situation can shield you from so many of these things.
“We’ve talked about it and it usually sort of gets shrugged off and how could it not, because it really isn’t part of his day-to-day life.”
The Tripletts adopted Kobe and Alexis with the help of Debi Rolfing, wife of longtime NBC golf announcer Mark Rolfing, now with the Golf Channel. The Rolfings live in Kapalua, Hawaii, on the island of Maui, where Debi is a foster care parent.
“We’re not trying to change the world, we just wanted to have more kids and these were two kids we thought we could make a difference in their lives,” Triplett said. “More importantly, they’ve made a difference in ours.”
Triplett laughed when asked how his son got the name Kobe, saying Mark Rolfing initially wanted to name him Tiger.
“He goes, ‘No, that’s too big of a name,’ so Mark named him Kobe,” Triplett said. “When we adopted him, we were like, ‘Should we change his name? They’ve already been calling him Kobe for 10 days.’”
Triplett said he doesn’t know if his feelings about Black Lives Matter will ever rival how strongly he feels about adoption. But that wasn’t the point of the sticker prominent on his white golf bag.
“I don’t envision that being the case. For me it was more, ‘Think about this,’” Triplett said. “If somebody will just go on the web site and look. More of the stories that we have about this are anecdotal and we don’t really know the true depth of the issues and I don’t profess to. I have no answers at all.
“But I do know when you have a segment of the population that is frightened of the people that are there to help with their public safety, you have an issue. You have an issue.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.
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