Chiefs’ Mathieu, Royals’ Moore, KU, Mizzou, KSU figures open up about race and sports
Some of the biggest names in Kansas City sports joined The Star for a conversation Thursday that only tangentially related to their talent, their success or their craft.
Their words centered instead on a topic that has moved to the forefront of American consciousness:
Race.
With a prominent panel, The Star hosted a Facebook Live forum Thursday on the intersection of race and sports. Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick, Royals general manager Dayton Moore, Missouri men’s basketball coach Cuonzo Martin, KU men’s basketball coach Bill Self and K-State women’s basketball player Christianna Carr participated via a Zoom call, with The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff moderating the conversation.
We’ll let their words tell the story here:
• Mathieu recently joined other NFL stars in a Black Lives Matter video that urged the league to recognize racial injustices following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed in the custody of a white police officer. The video prompted a supportive response from commissioner Roger Goodell the following day.
“We’ve become traumatized. A lot of us have become numb,” Mathieu said during Thursday’s conversation. “For me, you get tired of seeing the same old thing — especially to your people. I think something needs to be done toward police reform, toward educating minorities on the laws, on police reform, different things like that. I feel like we have a long way to go. I feel like we’re going to be stronger together. These last few months have given us the opportunity to come closer, to have conversations, to be honest, to be open and to ultimately be real with each other.”
• Martin, a Black man who grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, has been vocal in supporting the protests across the country, including those in which his players have participated. He recently had Columbia Police Chief Geoff Jones speak with his team on a video call that spanned 90 minutes.
Before taking over at Mizzou, Martin coached at California, a short drive from where San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee during the pre-game playing of the national anthem to protest police brutality.
“You wanna do something. You wanna step out. You wanna say something. But the truth is self-preservation takes over because you have to provide for your family and you work for a university, so you want to be careful in how you speak,” Martin recalled of that time in 2016. “That was tough for me. So whenever it came around again, I was just telling myself, and I was praying to God, I have to get out in front of this in some way, shape or form.
“From this point on, this is who I am, and it has to be part of my life. I have to get out in front of this.
• Moore, the Royals’ GM, was instrumental in launching the Kansas City Urban Youth Academy in 2018. He said he recently spoke to Royals players and said he delivered this message:
“I’m not concerned about winning one more baseball game. I’m concerned about getting this right going forward,” he said of racial equality. “Our legacy in Kansas City needs to be what have we done to include others and give opportunities to others who have been disadvantaged.
“I was always told the cream will rise to the top. But in leadership, I’ve learned that’s not always the case. There are people in our communities and in our country that start on second and third base and they act like they hit the double or the triple. They had nothing to do with that. It had everything to do with what type of family you were born into, what your color of skin is. And there’s many who have been disadvantaged. We have to do a better job of mentoring, speaking up and providing a way for others to succeed so they have hope.”
• Carr, a junior at Kansas State, joined the protests in Topeka after Floyd’s death hit particularly close to home.
She is a Minneapolis native and immediately recognized the block in which a now-charged white police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes. Carr recently returned to Minneapolis for protests there and to help with donations.
“I feel like people need to have those hard conversations,” she said. “We need to be able to educate people so not only African Americans understand but we get on a level where everybody understands.
“I want you to be able to see my color, but I want you to be able to accept it, and I want you to be able to educate yourself and learn why I am the way that I am.”
• In his position at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Kendrick is the voice of Negro Leagues history and an adept narrator of one of the most important stories of race in sports.
“We’ve got a wonderful opportunity to see change occur because we have so many stepping to the front line of his issue and addressing it for what it is — a real issue in this country,” he said. “It’s not easy to talk about. It’s not supposed to be easy. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”
• In addition to having conversations with his players at KU, Self said he has spent the past month listening to podcasts, watching documentaries and “putting myself in a position to see totally the perspective that others come from.”
“This is a time as a coach and a leader — although we’ve been vocal to a pretty strong extent — but maybe allow my players and encourage my players to have the voice and have me stand with them as opposed to standing in front of them and having them always stand behind me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to players getting back. I’m looking forward to words becoming actions.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 4:13 PM with the headline "Chiefs’ Mathieu, Royals’ Moore, KU, Mizzou, KSU figures open up about race and sports."