September 1, 2016: Colin Kaepernick Takes a Knee

September 1, 2016: The San Francisco 49ers beat the San Diego Chargers, 31-21 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, in their last preseason game. Like any preseason game, the result doesn't matter. This time, it mattered less than ever.

Instead of standing while the National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was played before the game, 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick got down on one knee for the duration of the song.

He did this in protest of the many recent cases of police brutality. This earned him a bit of praise, and also a lot of nasty blowback from racists, who said he was "disgracing the Anthem" and "disgracing the American flag."

These people were not idiots: They were liars. It didn't have a damned thing to do with the flag. It has to do with white cops murdering unarmed black suspects who have been convicted of nothing, and knowing they will get away with it, because the men in power let them get away with it.

But they managed to redefine his protest, so that people didn't get the message that police brutality was a problem.

As a result, nothing changed. That was my only problem with the gesture: It didn't work. But he kept on doing it long after it became obvious that racist cops were still going to beat, and sometimes even murder, unarmed black people.

The people who attacked Kaepernick for his protest were not only disrespecting the 1st Amendment, one of the biggest things for which the flag stands. If they didn't respect his right, then the flag they claimed to love so much means nothing. By attacking Kaepernick for his protest, they were endorsing the cold-blooded murder of unarmed black people by white cops.

See? That's an extreme way to put it, but such a thing works both ways. If Kap is "un-American," then those people were racist. Or, they could have simply admitted that Kap has a point, and try to take that point away from him, by taking steps to solve the problem. That way, everybody would have won. Except the actual racists.

The 49ers went on to have a horrible season, 2-14. Statistically, Kaepernick wasn't much below what he had previously done, including taking the 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII in the 2012 season. In 2016, he completed 59.2 percent of his passes, for 2,241 yards, 16 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions. He also rushed for 468 yards. The position of quarterback was not the 49ers' problem.

Their defense was the problem: Following a 28-0 win over the Los Angeles Rams in their regular-season opener, they allowed the 6-10 Carolina Panthers to score 46, the 7-9 Buffalo Bills to score 45, the 7-9 New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons to each score 41, the Seattle Seahawks to score 37, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to score 34, the Arizona Cardinals to score 33, the Miami Dolphins to score 31, and the New England Patriots to score 30.

Their only other win came near the end of the season, also over the 4-12 Rams, on Christmas Eve. Of their 14 losses, only 5 were within 7 points, so even if they'd won all of those, they still would have been 7-9 and missed the Playoffs. Head coach Chip Kelly and general manager Trent Baalke were both fired.

On New Year's Day, January 1, 2017, with Donald Trump, who called Kapernick "that son of a bitch" in a public speech, having ridden a wave of bigotry -- and Russian meddling -- to become President-elect, the 49ers lost their season finale to the Seahawks, 25-23. Kaepernick completed 17 out of 22 passes, for 215 yards, throwing a touchdown pass, and no interceptions. He was 29 years old, hardly old for a quarterback.

He has never thrown another professional pass, in any league on Earth. You see, in the NFL, you can do anything you want, as long as you don't embarrass your team or the League. Once you do that, they are done with you. And Kaepernick had embarrassed the National Football League. Other leagues, such as the Canadian Football League, didn't want him to do the same to theirs, so they didn't sign him, either.

He wasn't banned, he was -- pardon the choice of word, which originally had nothing to do with race -- blackballed. As Mike Lupica insinuated in his column in the New York Daily News, every single team organization in the NFL, some of whom desperately needed improvement at the position of quarterback, was sending a message: "We would rather go 0-16 for what would have been the rest of Colin Kapernick's career than have him play for our team."

A corollary to that message could have been, "We would rather have bigots pay for tickets, parking, food, souvenirs, etc. than take the money of Kaepernick's supporters." But even that didn't really enter into it. Every bigot is an asshole, but not every asshole is a bigot. For the team owners, this wasn't about money. If there is one thing that a rich person values more than money, it is control. And the NFL team owners could not control Colin Kaepernick.

UPDATE: On February 2, 2020, with Jimmy Garappolo as quarterback, the 49ers played in Super Bowl LIV, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-20. On January 20, 2023, the 49ers were in the NFC Championship Game, playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. In the 2022 season opener, Trey Lance was their starting quarterback, but he got hurt on September 18. From then until December 4, it was Jimmy Garoppolo, but he was injured. From then onward, it was Brock Purdy, but he was injured early in that Championship Game. They had signed a previous quarterback, Josh Johnson, as an emergency backup after the December 4 game, and he stepped in for the NFC Championship, but left the game with a concussion in the 3rd quarter. Purdy was pressed back in for emergency duty, and threw 4 passes, completing them all, but for a total of 23 yards. The Niners lost, 31-7.

Colin Kaepernick was 35 years old. He should still have been their starter. If he had been, they might have won a 6th Super Bowl, and even a 7th.

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September 1, 2016 was a Thursday. As I said, the NFL was still in preseason, so their scores on this historic day mean nothing. But there were 4 games played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Mets lost to the Miami Marlins, 6-4 at Citi Field. The winning pitcher was José Miguel Ureña. The losing pitcher was Jacob deGrom, who gave up 3 runs on 6 hits and 4 walks in only 5 innings. Jay Bruce and Asdrúbal Cabrera hit home runs for the Metropolitans, but Christian Yelich went 3-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs for the Fish.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 9-6 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* And the Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-5 at Target Field in Minneapolis.

February 3, 2013: Power Failure at the Super Bowl

February 3, 2013: Super Bowl XLVII is played at the Superdome in New Orleans. It was the 7th time the building had hosted, a record. But it was the 1st time since Hurricane Katrina forced the building's renovation in 2005-06. (UPDATE: There has since been an 8th played there.)

The San Francisco 49ers were the NFC Champions for the 1st time since the 1994 season. They came in with a 5-0 record in Super Bowls. The Baltimore Ravens were the AFC Champions, having made 1 previous Super Bowl appearance, winning Super Bowl XXXV in 2001.

The 49ers' head coach was Jim Harbaugh. The Ravens' head coach was his younger brother, John Harbaugh. On John's staff was Jim's son, Jay Harbaugh. The family is from the Toledo area in northwestern Ohio. Jim and John were the sons of Jack Harbaugh, a running back at Bowling Green University in Ohio, who later served as head coach at Western Michigan and Western Kentucky.

John (left) and Jim Harbaugh

Jim had played quarterback for the University of Michigan, and had gotten both the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts to Conference Championship Games. He had even played the 1998 season with the Ravens. He was on Jon Gruden's staff when the Oakland Raiders reached Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003. John had played safety at Miami University of Ohio, a.k.a. "The Cradle of Coaches," and went right into coaching, serving on Andy Reid's staff as the Philadelphia Eagles reached Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. Jay's playing career ended with an injury as a high school defensive lineman. He graduated from Oregon State, and went into coaching.

This was the first time I followed a Super Bowl on social media, in my case both Facebook and Twitter. And when Jacoby Jones of the Ravens took the 49ers' opening kickoff of the 2nd half a Super Bowl record 108 yards for a touchdown, the score was Ravens 28, 49ers 6. I wrote on Twitter, "It's been a while since we had a good old-fashioned smackdown in a Super Bowl."

Beyoncé Knowles reunited with her Destiny's Child teammates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams to perform the halftime show. A little while later, with the score unchanged, I wrote: "Looks like the Ravens are following Beyoncé's advice: They're putting a ring on it."

A moment after that, I cited the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback turned ABC Monday Night Football announcer, who liked to announce a blowout by singing a Willie Nelson song, before his retirement in 1985 and his death in 2010: "Cue the ghost of Don Meredith: Turn out the lights! The party's over!"

And then, somebody did turn out the lights. A power outage caused the lights to go out in half of the stadium, stopping play for 34 minutes. The outage was caused by equipment failure near the stadium.

Thinking of the line about the roof being on fire in House Party, I wrote, "The roof! The roof! The roof is ill-wired!" About a dozen others, thinking of the Superdome being an inappropriate haven for refugees during Hurricane Katrina, wrote words to the effect of, "Now it's the rich people trapped in the Superdome."

But once power was restored, the 49ers seemed restored as well. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick drove them, and threw a touchdown pass to Michael Crabtree, cutting the deficit to 28-13. They forced the Ravens to end their next drive with a punt, and Kaepernick went to work again, the drive ending with a 6-yard touchdown run by Frank Gore. It was 28-20, and the Niners were back in the game. On the Ravens' next drive, Tarell Brown forced a fumble by Ray Rice, and recovered it. David Akers missed a field goal attempt, but a Raven penalty gave him a second chance, and he cut the lead to 28-23.

The Ravens finally woke up, but their drive stalled, and a Justin Tucker field goal made it 31-23. The 49ers' last drive included the last catch of Randy Moss' career -- in spite of regular-season totals of 983 catches for 15,295 yards and 157 touchdowns, he went 0-2 in Super Bowls -- and Kaepernick rushing for 15 yards, the longest touchdown run by a quarterback in Super Bowl history. But they missed what would have been a tying 2-point conversion, and the score stayed 31-29.

With 4:19 left in regulation, another Tucker field goal made it 34-29. The 49ers got to a 1st & goal on the Ravens' 7, but couldn't punch it in, and turned the ball over on downs with 1:46 left. The Ravens took an intentional safety, leaving time for one more play, a kickoff from their 20. Ted Ginn Jr. could only return it 31 yards, and the Ravens won, 34-31.

Those of us who saw the 49ers go 5-0 in Super Bowls from 1982 to 1995 had begun to think they would pull off the great comeback. But then, as Rick Pitino would say, Joe Montana, Roger Craig and Jerry Rice weren't walking through that door.

The Ravens had their 2nd title, and the 5th NFL Championship for the City of Baltimore. Raven linebacker Ray Lewis kept his word, and retired. In the end, though, despite the controversy that followed him during the Ravens' successful pursuit of Super Bowl XXXV, the most controversial player in this game turned out to be Colin Kaepernick -- not because he lied to the police, as Lewis did, but because he exposed them.

When the NFL Network ranked its 100 Greatest Players in 2010, Lewis was ranked 18th, and Ed Reed 88th.

UPDATE: Jay Harbaugh won a Super Bowl ring in 2026, as special teams coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks.

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February 3, 2013 was, like all Super Bowl days, a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games in the NBA:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 106-104 at the TD Garden in Boston.

* The Miami Heat beat the Toronto Raptors, 100-85 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 98-97 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

And there were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat the New York Islanders, 3-0 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Ottawa Senators, 2-1 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Washington Capitals, 6-3 at the Verizon Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington. Chris Kunitz scored 4 goals for the Penguins. Neither Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby nor Washington's Alex Ovechkin scored a goal, although Crosby had 2 assists, and Ovechkin 1.

* And the Florida Panthers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-3 at the First Niagara Center (now the KeyBank Center) in Buffalo.