This coach refused to play the race card.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles pushed back against a question framed around race in a Thursday news conference.
A reporter asked Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles about the significance of facing Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin this week, and their relationship as “two of the few black head coaches in the league.”
Bowles did not take the bait on the racially charged question, instead simply saying that the two have a very good relationship.
“We don’t look at what color we are when we coach against each other, we just know each other,” Bowles added.
Bowles’ response evidently wasn’t clear enough, as another member of the media continued to push the race angle in a follow-up question.
Another reporter chimed in, insisting on pushing the topic of race by asking Bowles, “But you also understand that representation matters too, right?”
She then asked about aspiring (black) coaches and players and the significance of seeing someone who “looks like them” or “grew up like them.”
At this point, Bowles appeared to have had enough.
He gave this doozy of an answer:
“Well, when you say, ‘They see you guys,’ and ‘look like them and grew up like them,’ it means that we’re oddballs to begin with,” Bowles answered. “I think the minute you guys stop making a big deal about it, everybody else will as well.”
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Bowles’ answer didn’t exactly line up with the progressive tendency to view everything through the lens of race and ethnicity.
Fans pointed to Bowles’ answer as a masterclass in treating others as individuals, regardless of their racial identity.
Coach Bowles handled that very professionally.
That should have been the end of it, but NOPE! See, not looking at color is RACIST now.
The wokity-woke female reporter had to add, “But you also understand that representation matters too, right?”, as if to gently chide him for wrongthink.
I am so dang sick of Orwell’s 1984 encroaching on sports. Get outta here, you woke cultists! Sports is where we put aside all that crud and play ball.
