Earlier this week, two events occurred within hours which revealed a disturbing double standard in the way we judge the behaviour of sporting legends: Kobe Bryant was eulogised and Margaret Court was vilified.
Bryant — who died in a helicopter crash which also claimed the lives of his daughter, six family friends and the pilot — was one of the most successful and talented basketball players in the game’s history. He was also controversial. In 2003, Bryant was accused of sexual assault. He denied the claim, saying he believed the sex was consensual. The case was later dropped and an out-of-court settlement reached. Bryant subsequently paid his accuser an amount estimated to be more than $US2.5 million. He also issued an apology without admitting guilt.
In the aftermath of the fiery crash that killed him, Bryant was mourned by millions, including tennis legend John McEnroe. In a cringeworthy on-court interview with Rafael Nadal after the latter’s Australian Open fourth round win — and on the same day as he lambasted Margaret Court for her conservative social views — McEnroe admitted Bryant’s death had left him “numb”, and expressed a solemn desire that he “rest in peace”.
The sexual assault claim against Bryant left his obituarists with an awkward conundrum. Most decided on a course of action which was bound to leave more scrupulous readers unsatisfied — they treated the allegations as an embarrassing blemish, as a footnote which needed to be acknowledged, but swiftly skimmed over. What claims did not need to do — or so the unspoken logic went — was impede an account of Bryant’s life that was largely devoted to its triumphs and glories.
In the era of #MeToo, such reticence regarding an alleged sexual impropriety was perplexing. It was clearly an uncomfortable subject for Bryant’s fans to discuss, which is why some simply didn’t bother (and others threatened those who did). While US President Donald Trump expressed his “warmest condolences” to the family of a man he described as “truly great”, his presidential predecessor was equally, if not more, effusive. “Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act,” Barack Obama tweeted.
Hours after Bryant’s death, Margaret Court — who remains the most prolific winner of major singles titles in the history of tennis, and is now a Christian minister who promotes views about same-sex marriage that a vocal minority find despicable — was honoured at a ceremony at the Australian Open. It is almost 50 years since Court became the first woman to win the calendar Grand Slam in the so-called Open era. That same year, 1970, she reportedly uttered comments sympathetic to the South African government’s policy of apartheid. Tennis Australia’s no doubt begrudging decision to celebrate her on-court achievements was met with dismay by many, who questioned why someone regarded as anachronistic was still winning official plaudits.
What was surprising in the aftermaths of these near-simultaneous events — the tributes for Bryant, the backlash against Court — was the way in which their moral dimensions were neatly compartmentalised in the popular consciousness, as if they had happened in separate universes. It was a resounding win for double standards. Despite facing accusations of dire misdeeds, Bryant was a Great Man whose allegedly criminal past barely rated a mention, but Court — whose transgressions have been verbal only — was a devil in priest’s clothing. Court was demonised, Bryant sanctified.
The allegations against Bryant are disturbing but their veracity is now impossible to assess, at least from afar. Being wrongly accused of such a crime is, for many, a worst nightmare. Yet there are many alarming aspects of the Bryant case — several of which he admitted to — which should at least give pause for thought.
If Margaret Court was, as McEnroe labelled her before her commendation, the “crazy aunt”, then what the hell was Kobe Bryant? The dodgy stepdad? The creepy coach? Court’s views might be deeply objectionable but they are not, and should never be deemed, criminal. They are not hate speech, and they do not incite violence. Court not only has a right to hold such views, but a right to express them, just as others have a right to howl her down.
Free speech permits the articulation of opinions that all of us, from our own idiosyncratic perspectives, will inevitably find offensive. Citing the old chestnut about “not agreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it” might seem a lowbrow reflex, but it is not without merit. If there is no longer a court of public opinion, then what are we left with? A dictatorship of public stupidity?
Free speech activists such as Peter Hain were among the most vocal opponents of apartheid in the 1970s.
It was their disruptive protests which succeeded in securing a sporting boycott against the South African government, and which eventually helped bring an end to that regime and its reign of terror against non-white citizens. The bitterest critics of the boycott repeated the refrain that sport and politics did not mix, an argument often used as a more publicly palatable proxy by those who did not wish to openly admit their admiration for the white supremacist tyranny then operating out of Pretoria. (Ironically, this argument relied on a kind of apartheid of its own, by insisting the political and the sporting realms should stay separate). But if this was ever Court’s view, then she has at least dedicated time in more recent years to repudiating it.
In her autobiography, Court devotes several revealing paragraphs to a tournament in Johannesburg which she and Evonne Goolagong Cawley participated in. The tournament occurred in the early 1970s, around the same time that the Australian government was beginning to cut ties with South Africa. She admits that, before attending, she had not done enough to “educate myself about the iniquities of apartheid”. The tournament itself ended in racially motivated acrimony over the “honorary white” status which had been temporarily granted to Goolagong by the South African authorities. This prompted Court to remark to journalists: “Something has to happen in this country and what’s been going on here today might be the turning point of it all. Let’s hope so.”
While some readers may find aspects of her account unsatisfying, Court at least confesses to what appears to be regret at ever having been associated with the South African regime, describing it as “evil”. In doing so, as she accurately implies, she has advanced considerably further, in a moral sense, than the dozens of intellectually bankrupt Australian and international cricketers who participated in the disgustingly misnamed “rebel” tours without subsequently expressing a single word of remorse. In light of these facts, attempts to condemn Court over South Africa appear mischievous at best. “I was a sportswoman and I didn’t have a political bone in my body,” Court admitted. “In South Africa in 1971, the scales fell from my eyes.”
Over the last decade, Court has used the high profile afforded her by her former sporting prowess to promote other beliefs on spiritual and political matters. From her religious pulpit – but also the secular one gifted her by column space and air time in the popular media – Court has fulminated against what she considers to be wickedness and sin and has castigated political leaders.
In his final years, Kobe Bryant also made occasional forays into the realm of political provocation. Bryant regarded the election of Donald Trump as representing a major decline in American standards, especially after the peaks of the Obama era. In 2017, he told a reporter that he would refuse to attend the White House if ever invited there by the President.
“That’s the beauty of this country, it’s being able to speak up for what you believe,” Bryant declared.
“It’s being able to voice that opinion, you can agree with it, you can disagree with it, but I certainly respect your opinion and I believe all thoughts should be valued.”
On this point, at least, Bryant was, as they say, on the money. If we have reached the stage where the views of a great tennis player are considered more reprehensible than an alleged rapist, then our standards have slipped a very long way indeed.
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