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| Photo Credit: AP. |
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Doc Rivers is at ease using his platform as an NBA coach to fight bigotry and racial injustice, campaign for politicians he believes in and advocate for social change on themes ranging from poverty to police brutality.
Sometimes,
his speeches sound like they were delivered by someone running for office.
Might the 60-year-old Rivers, the son of a Chicago police officer, someday stump
for change as an actual politician?
“Oh God, no.
I wouldn’t win, number one,” Rivers said. “And number two, that’s not what I
want to be.”
Rivers is
fine with wading into political waters — and the older he gets and the more he
learns about modern issues and Black history with deep meaning to him, the more
he speaks out. At Donald Trump. At police misconduct. At the horrors of racism
that have shadowed him his entire life. At the idea that, even as coach of the
Philadelphia 76ers, it can still be hard to find his place as a Black man in
America.
“When you hear, ‘America first,’ that scares
me, because I’m a Black man and that’s not including me,” Rivers said last week
in an interview with The Associated Press. “I want us to all be included. I
want us all to function with each other.”
Rivers has
become an agent of change in the NBA and found his voice as an activist, trying
to contribute perhaps more to the league than he has already, first as an
All-Star guard and then with a coaching career that includes the 2008
championship with Boston and a spot this year on the list of the 15 Greatest
Coaches in NBA History. That outreach starts at home — or perhaps, on this
point, on the road — where Rivers used training camp not just as the usual time
to rehash X’s and O’s but as a daily history class. The Sixers practiced at The
Citadel, the military college where tanks and jets and plaques dedicated to
prisoners of wars dot the campus, an education all part of Rivers’ plan to
squeeze more out of camp than basketball.
“All of it
is good for us,” Rivers said.
The Sixers
usually hold camp at their New Jersey complex but Rivers wanted to strengthen
team bonding with a road trip. The Sixers gathered last week for team dinners,
played card and video games, and had serious conversations, the type of
day-to-day activities largely shelved the last two seasons because of COVID-19
protocols.
“When you
have camp at home, you don’t get that,” Rivers said. “They go home at the end
of practice and they don’t spend time with each other.”
Rivers was a
guard with the Knicks in the early 1990s when the team held camp at the College
of Charleston. Back then, coach Pat Riley made the players walk from the team
hotel to the arena.
The 76ers
stuck to the team bus last week.
Rivers and
the Sixers organized field trips to the Old Slave Mart Museum, often staffed by
individuals who trace their history to the enslaved people of Charleston, and
to the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture. Citadel President
Gen. Glenn Walters and retired professor and historian Bernard Powers both
spoke to the team.
“My people,
my African people coming here, the people that gave up their lives for us to be
able to be in this position, it was good to learn about all of that,” said
center Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon and recently became a U.S.
citizen.
Powers said
by phone that he talked to the Sixers at their team hotel about such topics as
the role Charleston played in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the slave revolt
of 1739 and the descendants of enslaved people known as Gullah, who live in
small island communities scattered over 425 miles (684 kilometers) of the
Southern Atlantic U.S. coast.
“This was
the port where a greatly disproportionate number of Africans were brought
here,” Powers said. “This place, more than any other, might be very likely a
source of their ancestry. They could think about perhaps having a personal
connection to this place.”
Rivers
believed the experiences resonated with a team full of 20-somethings all the
way up to coaching staff veterans.
“Teaching
American history is under assault right now. And it’s not Black history or
teaching about slavery, it’s American history,” Rivers said. “And so I was
amazed. The first thing that I was taught the other day was, how many players,
and not only players, coaches, came up to me and said, ‘Wow, I never was taught
that in my history class.’”
Rivers
referenced learning about shameful historic chapters such as the Tulsa Race
Massacre as an adult rather than learning about the white mobs in school as one
reason he has pushed for more Black history to be taught in all schools.
“You should
know your history. You really should,” Rivers said. “Could you imagine if we
were not taught the history of Germany and the Holocaust? There really is no
difference. I want to make sure we’re taught the same history.”
History
matters, but it’s today’s headlines that trouble Rivers.
Before he
took questions from reporters after Wednesday’s practice at The Citadel, Rivers
addressed the death of a 14-year-old shot in the chest near a northwest
Philadelphia high school athletic field. The shooting occurred hours after
Mayor Jim Kenney signed an executive order banning guns and deadly weapons from
the city’s indoor and outdoor recreation spaces including parks, basketball
courts and pools.
Rivers, as
he has in the past, urged for stricter laws on firearms.
“Obviously,
if anybody knew the answer, we would try to find the answer there, you know,
other than taking guns off the street,” Rivers told reporters. “But that’s too
political. So we’ve got to figure it out.”
Rivers
mentioned a few times during his AP interview that he doesn’t want to get “too
political” but matters of state matter to him. He was invited before the 2020
election to speak at a Joe Biden rally after the Democratic presidential
candidate used Rivers’ words on the Jacob Blake police shooting in Kenosha,
Wisconsin, in his own speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, calling for racial
unity. Rivers later decried the riotous Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,
though he said at the time that “democracy will prevail.”
“I didn’t
used to be” political, Rivers said. “I’ve always been aware of politics, I’ve
always been involved. But what got me involved is, we have this separation of
race now, of pitting races against each other.”
Rivers
serves on the board of the NBA Social Justice Coalition. The advocacy
organization called members of Congress in support of an executive order
designed to improve accountability in policing. Rivers was in Washington when
Biden signed the order on the second anniversary of George Floyd’s death at the
hands of Minneapolis police. The order was meant to reflect the challenges in
addressing racism, excessive use of force and public safety when Congress is deadlocked
on stronger measures.
“I think we
need police reform,” Rivers said. “Our training has to be better. The thing that
bothers me is that everyone should want that, including the police.”
The Sixers
coach said today’s NBA players are more politically aware and involved in
societal change than when he played in the 1980s and ’90s but he wanted more of
the wealthy players, especially ones with millions of social media followers,
to speak up on thorny current events. Rivers talked to the Sixers about the
power of voting — the NBA this season scheduled no games on Nov. 8, which is
Election Day — but won’t force his players to vote.
But he can
make them listen.
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