Harrison Butker, the Kansas City Chiefs player whose “Me Tarzan/You Jane” commencement speech caused a stir last spring, was back in the news recently after signing a contract extension that made him the highest-paid kicker in the league. Well deserved, considering he’s the second-most accurate kicker in NFL history. Unfortunately, the occasion also provided him with an opportunity to double down on his statements.
Opinion columnist
Granderson Landing Station
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and navigating life in America.
“I prayed about it, I thought about it and I was very intentional about what I said and I stand by that,” the 29-year-old said. He told reporters last week.
Among the successes were calling efforts toward diversity, equity and inclusion “tyranny,” criticizing President Biden’s faith and telling graduating women, “I would venture to guess that most of you are very excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” Of his wife, he said, “It cannot be overstated that all of my success is possible because a girl I met in band class in high school converted to faith, became my wife, and adopted one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”
It was like listening to a JD Vance demo track.
But the three-time Super Bowl champion said something in May that resonated with me: “Don’t apologize for your masculinity. Fight the cultural emasculation of men. Do hard things. Never settle for easy.”
To some, Butker's words about masculinity seemed toxic and reflected misogyny and homophobia. To others, his thoughts sounded like a much-needed response to the current landscape, which is determined by what is considered politically correct for men to say and do.
Butker’s words stayed with me because I, too, believe that men should “do hard things.”
What we disagree on is what is most difficult. I don't think it's courageous for a highly paid athlete to use his platform to demonize initiatives that support the inclusion of minorities and homosexuals. As the famous politician Sam Rayburn said: “Any fool can tear down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”
What it means to be a man in America today has been the focus of conservative and progressive sociologists and political analysts, as well as politicians and podcasters. Some men, like Joe Rogan, have monetized the conversation. Some conservatives, like Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Vance of Ohio, are cosplaying some outmoded myth of masculinity. And there are progressives who are coming dangerously close to similar thinking, like strategist James Carville in March, when he said: He wagged an angry finger at “female preachers.” in the Democratic Party.
Enter Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota and Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate.
Like Butker, he also loves football. And in 1999, when the Mankato West High School football team he coached for was in the midst of a 2-4 start, The waltz also became faculty adviser for the school's first gay-straight alliance. For context: Matthew Shepard was found beaten and bloodied about 800 miles west in Laramie, Wyoming, the previous year. Billy Bean, the second former MLB player to come out, I hadn't sat down with Diane Sawyer yet Talking publicly about one's sexual orientation. Only 35% of the country supports same-sex marriage.
And there was Walz, a football coach from Small Town, USA, who decided to use his platform to help students who were being bullied. Later that year, the football team went on a winning streak and finished the season as state champions.
When I think about what it means to do hard things, that's as good an example as any.
Among the Harris-Walz campaign stops this week was a fundraiser in Denver. There, several attendees told me how much they appreciated that Walz was an ally long before it became trendy. Among them were former student-athletes who hadn’t come out as gay during their playing days. When I asked Walz if there had been any backlash to her support of LGBTQ+ students at her school, she said, “No, and I think that’s something that’s not said. The community embraced it. It just had to be done.”
At the Philadelphia rally where Harris announced Walz as her running mate, she told the story of how Walz volunteered as a GSA faculty adviser, as well as that championship football season.
It was the kind of story Bean would have loved to hear. Unfortunately, he died just hours earlier. Last fall, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Bean was 60, the same age as Walz. Bean spent the last decade of his life trying to make the sports world a more accepting space, as Major League Baseball’s senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.
I’m sure Bean and many others would have loved to have had a coach like Walz when they were growing up. Queer athletes today live in a world where solidarity is becoming more the rule than the exception. This year, there were nearly 200 out queer athletes at the Paris Olympics, and a third of them won a medal.
I’m not sure what Butker thinks about that display of diversity, equity and inclusion. As for me, I’d like to think it’s the result of a world in which men like Walz aren’t afraid to do hard things.
