Written by Robert Klemko at MMQB.com
Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit for the national anthem in protest of institutional racism in America—an unprecedented move in the vast non-partisan tradition of quarterback behavior—made me think of the fall of 2012, when I had a unique glimpse into the world that raised Colin Kaepernick.
I was a rookie reporter at USA Today at the time, two years removed from college, and the same age as Kaepernick. USA Today’s NFL editor Kevin Manahan sent me to Turlock, Calif., to profile the quarterback who had just taken the starting job in San Francisco from longtime starter Alex Smith. Kaepernick was big, fast, soft-spoken, and he lit up the NFL that season. He also was black and covered in tattoos, two facts which became a big part of the storyline the day I arrived in his sleepy hometown of 70,000 nestled between Modesto and Merced in NorCal farm country.
On Nov. 28, 2012, the Sporting News published a column by David Whitley criticizing Kaepernick for the example he was setting as a quarterback covered in ink. Wrote Whitley: “NFL quarterback is the ultimate position of influence and responsibility. He is the CEO of a high-profile organization, and you don’t want your CEO to look like he just got paroled.”
He went on to draw comparisons to other tattooed quarterbacks of note: “Then there are Michael Vick and Terrelle Pryor. Neither exactly fit the CEO image, unless your CEO has done a stretch in Leavenworth or has gotten Ohio State on probation over free tattoos.”
The Internet rose up and smothered Whitley in the manner we’ve become so familiar in the years since. Readers noted racial undertones in Whitley’s work. I wondered what Kaepernick thought about it, but he wasn’t saying. The 49ers weren’t making Colin available to individual reporters for the most part that fall; his celebrity was white-hot, and he was just a bit unsure of himself. But I had free rein to ask his parents, Teresa and Rick, whatever I wanted.
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