Lowell Cohn: Athletes don’t have depth to discuss grownup issues

This is not a trash-Colin-Kaepernick column. It is about the limitations of almost all athletes. But Kaepernick is the catalyst for what I'm writing, so please bear with me.

After the 49ers lost to the Dolphins on Sunday, Kaepernick addressed the media. He wanted to clarify what he'd said about Fidel Castro earlier in the week on a conference call. He had praised Castro to Miami writers, some of them Cuban, writers who know a lot more about Castro than Kaepernick.

On Sunday, he said Castro did many good things. Said this to writers whose families fled Cuba for their lives. Said Castro improved literacy in Cuba and installed universal healthcare.

Tell that to Cubans who died in shark-infested waters getting the hell away from the literacy maven Castro. Being able to read didn't help them with the sharks. Neither did universal healthcare.

I did research on Castro, got some of these facts from the UK's Independent. When Castro took over, he summarily executed more than 500 supporters of the old regime. He executed some of the new regime as well, people who fought alongside him, people he thought might challenge his supremacy. Later on as dictator, he executed thousands without trials. He held thousands of political prisoners. His daughter and younger sister fled Cuba.

More from the Independent: “As the one-party system came into force, independent newspapers were closed and homosexuals, priests and others viewed as a threat were herded into labor camps for ‘re-education.' Censorship and repression spread, with fans of American rock 'n' roll among those targeted. Freedom of expression, religion, association, assembly, movement and the press were denied.”

In other words, Castro expunged everything we believe in as free people. So, don't tell us he had universal healthcare, Colin. Don't tell us that. And don't tell us you didn't vote because a nation can't vote the “oppressor” out of power. This is the junk I heard from Stanford undergraduates when, as a graduate student, I taught Freshman English in the 1960s and 1970s.

The oppressor? Castro was the oppressor. I wish Kaepernick could see that. I resent him lecturing me on politics and history. He is 29. I am 71. I have thought about these things longer than he's been alive. Please have some humility, Colin.

And now to my larger point. I don't go to athletes and ask about grownup topics like politics and literature. Insert your own personal grownup topic here. I am talking about ALL athletes. I don't ask their opinions. Being blunt here - I don't care about their opinions.

An example. I covered the 49ers when they were great. I liked some of the players very much. Knew them extremely well. I never asked Joe Montana to discuss socialism pro or con. I never asked Ronnie Lott his opinion of Castro or Joseph Stalin. Never asked Steve Young to compare and contrast Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

Are you kidding me?

Why didn't I ask?

I had friends, some of them Stanford profs or my classmates, who were older than Joe and Ronnie and Steve and had thought deeply about these topics. My friends knew more than the football players. Not even close.

But there's something more important. It is not reasonable to ask athletes their opinions on topics like these. It's taking an unfair advantage. I have been around thousands of athletes and one thing I know. They devote almost all their time to their sport. They live an obsessive life. In football, they study the game plan and learn their particular role in the upcoming game, and they nurse injuries and they worry about getting cut.

Those issues consume them. As they should. They do not have the time to investigate Castro or Winston Churchill or FDR. Not in depth.

This is no knock against athletes, and I'm sure not saying they are stupid. Many of them are smart. But their world views of necessity are limited.

We tend to think of them as experts. We ask their opinion on all sorts of topics - on issues of ethics or politics or art. In general, they are not experts on these matters.

As players they don't have the time to think them through, and they are young and inexperienced. After they retire, they catch up fast. When I meet someone I covered as a young man and now he's older and he's well-informed and thoughtful, it's always a shock. He's a different man from the one I used to know. Existentially different.

It is unfair of the media to ask athletes questions about topics other than their sport. It is unfair to ask Kaepernick about American politics or Cuban politics. I never ask him. He's so inexperienced, learning on the run, saying ridiculous things, not understanding whom he offends or even why.

I ask him why he can't win a game or what happened on a specific play. Those are things he can talk about. Those questions are fair to ask. He is a football player, although I'll add this: The media asks Kaepernick political questions because Kaepernick advertises himself as a political expert. He deserves the flak he gets. Deserved to be excoriated by Miami writers.

He is not a bad person. I imagine he's a very good person. But he's not fully developed, he's ill-informed and full of himself, and doesn't know the things he doesn't know.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.