Same Team

Sports as a Conduit for Care

Growing up, I hated sitting on the bench. I played basketball, football, and ran track. No matter the sport, I was hungry to compete. My least favorite place to be was on the sideline.

Now, I laugh about this while I throw on my forest green, moisture-wicking tee that says “COACH” on the back and hope I don’t forget money for the ref and the scorekeeper. I’m through most of my first season coaching basketball in my community’s rec league, and the sideline is my home.

Coming into this season, I didn’t know any of my players. It doesn’t help that the high school-aged players don’t practice, so I spent the first few weeks of the season trying to learn their names and pointing at them if I needed to sub them in or out.

From what I could tell, some players knew each other, but most didn’t seem close. They’d smirk if they recognized one of their teammates, but they usually shot around alone before games instead of with each other.

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I quickly realized we had a good team, but none of us really knew what to do with each other. I fumbled so many high-fives during our first game—that split second when you have to decide whether to dap or pound. Every other timeout, we might even halfheartedly break it down on three. But only if I was feeling spicy.

I did my best to go at their pace. We got some good wins to start the season and saw we could play together. Even when we had to start four players against a higher-ranked team that ran a full lineup, we only lost by five. We picked up a few more wins, and I saw the guys getting more confident.

It became clear how far we had come during one of the games in that stretch. It was the fourth quarter, we were up by double digits, and both teams were still pushing hard. One of my players got the ball and began dribbling up the court for a fast-break layup. As he went up, one of the opposing players jumped up and clobbered him to the ground.

My bench players immediately sprung to their feet to defend their teammate. As their coach, I had to keep them in check, but that moment taught me a lot about how sports can increase our capacity for care. They bring us closer together to the point where it’s second nature for us to stand up for each other when one of us gets knocked down.

In November 2023, Maen Hammad penned an essay for Skate Jawn on skateboarding, solidarity, and Palestine. Hammad, a documentary photographer and writer who has covered the Palestinian skateboard scene for over seven years, wrote, “We are protectors of our homies. We skate in solidarity.”

In the essay, Hammad talked about skateboarding not only as an act of resistance but as a tool of resistance—citing how, during the 2020 uprisings in the United States, Anthony Huber, 26, a father and skateboarder, was shot and killed while attempting to take down an armed white supremacist, Kyle Rittenhouse, with his skateboard in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “Skateboarding is liberatory,” Hammad wrote.

Photo by Maen Hammad

Hammad also shared how skateboarders in occupied Palestine band together in small crews and share resources with each other. I appreciate the camaraderie forged in sports, which is especially clear in more disruptive cultures like skateboarding. You have to care for each other. You have to keep each other safe.

“Skateboarding is a transnational subversion to systems of oppression,” said Hammad. “Where state-sanctioned violence erects walls from Mexico to Palestine, our craft transcends borders—transcends skateboarding. We are connected through pavement, sharing our streets, our struggles, and pushing for solidarity.”

Even in more institutionally acceptable sports, it’s unsurprising that the instilled value of teamwork leads players to stand up for each other in ways that extend beyond the actual game.

At the end of January 2024, Yahoo Sports published a story by Senior NBA Reporter Jake Fischer about Tony Snell’s push to make an NBA roster.

According to Fischer, Snell hoped a team would sign him for the remainder of the season by February 2nd so he could compile a 10th year of service for the players association’s retiree benefits program, which would make him eligible for the union’s premium medical plan. In addition to his current single qualification, this would also cover his family, including his two sons, Karter, 3, and Kenzo, 2, who were both diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

When the story broke, NBA alum Charles Barkley spoke out on Inside the NBA on TNT and called for a team to sign Snell. “We always talk about what a family we are,” said Barkley. “Let’s sign that kid for the rest of the season.” NBA champion Aaron Gordon joined Barkley's call and tweeted, “Someone in the @nba sign T-snell. Do the right thing!”

Snell didn’t receive an NBA contract for this season, which says something about sports teams’ capitalistic priorities and how the U.S. healthcare system is intentionally structured to work against its people. It also speaks to the commitment of current and former players to look out for one another in the face of oppressive systems.

When news broke in March 2022 of Russian officials detaining eight-time WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner on drug charges, the WNBA and Griner’s agent said they were working to get her home. In the following months, although fearful of potentially hurting Griner’s case, WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Angel McCoughtry spoke out on Griner’s behalf. They explained why several WNBA players head to Russia every offseason.

“The big thing is the fact that we have to go over there. It was BG, but it could have been anybody,” said Stewart, who earned over $1 million to play in Russia. “WNBA players need to be valued in their country and they won’t have to play overseas.”

During the 2022 season, a decal with Griner’s initials and jersey number was installed on every WNBA court. League all-stars wore Griner’s number 42 jersey in the second half of the 2022 WNBA All-Star Game. Also, during the ESPYs, Nneka Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins-Smith, and Steph Curry encouraged the sports community to continue working to free Griner.

In December 2022, Russia finally freed BG in a prisoner exchange. While many were content with seeing Griner back home, she found it within herself to play the 2023 season, even throwing down a pair of dunks in last July's WNBA All-Star Game.

Ahead of the season, during her first time speaking with reporters since her detention, Griner acknowledged how others showed up for her while she was imprisoned. “I was aware of the efforts and everything that was going on,” said Griner. “It made me have hope.”

In this moment, as fascism is holding on for dear life, I look at sports as a conduit for care, capable of providing examples of how we can recognize commonalities and shared goals. The world many of us desire—a world free from oppression where everyone has what they need—requires us to see each other as part of the same team. We must be willing to fight for one another, stand up for each other, and put ourselves on the line for neighbors in need.

Last Fall, for the first time, I watched mid90s—Jonah Hill’s film about a 13-year-old boy who befriends a group of Los Angeles skateboarders. This movie, released in 2018, has become more challenging to watch in recent years, especially with all the controversy surrounding Hill. But I loved getting to see the bond the characters built. There are troubling moments and harsh interactions, but there’s also this sense that, for these skater kids, they’re all they have.

From mid90s

When Stevie, the youngest of the bunch, falls through a hole in the roof of a building while trying to jump over it on his skateboard like some of the older boys did, they all run to his aid. They get his shirt taken off and wrap it around his head to try to stop the bleeding. They even make another one of the guys remove his shirt and give it to Stevie.

We are protectors of our homies.

I want to avoid overstating how important sports are to the work of political liberation. But when my player got fouled to the ground and his teammates stood up to defend him, I did see we have the capacity for genuine love, which bell hooks described as “a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.”

Genuine love lifts us out of our seats and compels us to protect our homies, to show each other we’re worth fighting for. It reminds us freedom and safety are necessary causes and none of us are good until all of us are good. Because these institutions can’t provide for us in life-affirming ways. We’re all we have.

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