Colin Kaepernick’s Legacy Might Look a Lot Like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s

For the first time ever, the “stick to sports” era is starting to feel bygone.

Colin Kaepernick’s national-anthem protest against police brutality and the failures of the judicial system has had a surprisingly galvanizing effect. Athletes from across the sports world have publicly supported him, casting aside their own fears of public scorn to confront one of the most polarizing issues of the age.

Kaepernick has followed a long line of brave athletes who raised questions about social issues. Perhaps surprisingly, he may come out of the situation unscathed.

As of yet, Kaepernick hasn’t lost any endorsements and hasn’t been formally reprimanded by his team, the San Francisco 49ers, or the NFL, though league commissioner Roger Goodell stated his disagreement with Kaepernick’s gestures when the Associated Press asked him about them.

His jersey, not among the top 10 best-sellers on his team before his protests began in late August, skyrocketed to No. 1 in the league, per Darren Heitner of Forbes, during the first week of the season.

Pro athletes of previous generations who made outward displays of defiance weren’t accommodated like this. Many were met with definitive repercussions. Former Denver Nuggets star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf knows this all too well.

Abdul-Rauf—who changed his name from Chris Jackson when he converted to Islam in the early ’90s—spent nine years in the league as an extra-quick combo guard with a deft shooting touch, twice leading the NBA in free-throw shooting percentage.

During the 1994 playoffs, he was a starter on the eighth-seeded Nuggets team that upset the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics. Before his NBA career, he was one of the best pure scorers college basketball had ever seen and still holds the record for per-game scoring by a freshman (30.2 PPG).

But that’s not what you know him for, is it? You know Abdul-Rauf because, in 1996, he refused to stand for the national anthem, citing the flag’s symbolic meaning to large portions of the world.

“I couldn’t stand for a flag that represented tyranny and oppression,” Abdul-Rauf told Bleacher Report during the Q&A interview that follows.  

Abdul-Rauf believes his protest triggered his premature exit from the league at age 31. Now living in the Greater Atlanta area, Abdul-Rauf trains athletes and writes books. He is, as you might imagine, 100 percent behind Kaepernick.

He spoke with B/R about Kaepernick’s protest, how social activism in professional sports has changed …

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