Senator George Allen: A Team Player
October 2, 2006 | By Jack Yoest
In sports, as in the military as in politics, units with unit cohesion win. The team -- sports, combat, political -- succeeds because the members trust each other. Blindly.
And color blindly.
The Dude with his team, 2005
Men, in the arena of battlefields of war, sports or politics, develop team work that wins. And the winning comes after the mutual respect of the individual players to one another. It is not an individual who wins, but the team.
Your Business Blogger has crossed paths a time or two with Senator George Allen over the last decade or so and has never heard, or to prove the negative: never not heard a racist remark. But my feeling (as valid as the feelings of UVA's Larry Sabato's) is that a football quarterback does not say or do anything to hurt the team. Any team he plays on.
When I was in the Army, certain racial slurs were in no one's vocabulary -- it was not tolerated at any level because it was wrong and would hurt the units' effectiveness.
In sports, racial animosity is unthinkable because winning transcends any individual characteristic except talent. And sometimes not even individual talent.
My boy, The Dude, plays a number of (very expensive) organized sports. And there is much yelling and gnashing of teeth and criticisms and corrections (and that's just from the parents). But all the instruction is directed toward how the players perform, not who they are. The criticism is on performance not pigmentation.
And George Allen likes to win. He would never say or do anything to hurt the team.
George Allen, Susan, Charmaine, Jack Yoest, circa 1993
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Thank you (foot)notes: Your Business Blogger, as a private citizen, has donated and campaigned for George Allen in a number of his political campaigns.
Stop the ACLU has more.
LaShawn has analysis.
Washington Post has follow-up.
Captain Ed has more on the mudslinging.
