Forget sports analysis, one NBC reporter is now analyzing athletes’ beliefs.
Late last week, during the team’s season opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants pitcher Sam Coonrod stood alone as the only athlete who didn’t take a knee during the performance of the national anthem.
The Giants player later explained to the San Francisco Chronicle he didn’t feel it was appropriate for him to do so. Because of his Christian faith, he said, “I can’t kneel before anything besides God.”
“I meant no ill will by it,” he added of his decision. “I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I’m just a Christian. I believe I can’t kneel before anything but God, Jesus Christ. I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel, I’d be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
Coonrod also expressed concerns about some of the tenets of the official Black Lives Matter organization, which is politically tied to Marxism and dedicated to “disrupt[ing] the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
Over the weekend, NBC Sports reporter Monte Poole penned an article about his dissatisfaction with Coonrod, whom he ultimately concluded must be a fake Christian.
“All the Giants pitcher did was exercise the right that all Americans have, at least theoretically,” wrote Poole. “Freedom of choice. The right for which millions of Americans fought, with many dying.”
Poole’s analysis, which seemed benign in its introduction, only became more disapproving, eventually devolving into the suggestion that Coonrod must not actually be a Christian.
“[Coonrod] said plenty wrong, though, offering up an explanation that slid off his tongue and went dribbling down his chest like liquid contradiction,” wrote the NBS sportscaster. Poole continued, “When did real Christianity opt out of humanity? Give a pass to injustice and inequality? Decide that it’s disrespectful to offer support, if not shelter, to those in need?”
“Does Coonrod not realize that pastors of all faiths are joining crowds around the world fighting these very ideals?” he added.
In addition to falling into the “appeal to authority” fallacy with his final probe, Poole also succumbed to the “either/or” fallacy — the flawed suggestion that there are only two options: end police brutality by supporting Black Lives Matter, or endorse police brutality.
The remainder of Poole’s diatribe is actually built around the latter fallacy.
He argued the real reason for Coonrod’s decision to stand during “The Star-Spangled Banner” isn’t because of his faith or concerns with the official Black Lives Matter movement. Rather, Poole espoused, it’s because Coonrod is — in addition to being a fake Christian — actually a racist.
Poole suggested, too, Coonrod is overly focused on the official beliefs of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“What Coonrod did not say but surely crept into the minds of listeners and readers is that he believes the various evolutions of America’s two greatest sins — the other being stealing land from the natives — are acceptable,” wrote the reporter. “That equality is something for others to deal with. That Christianity has, somehow, disqualified him from the cause.”
“There are only two rational explanations for what Coonrod said,” he continued. “One, he didn’t hear himself speak. Or, two, he heard every word he said and knows he did not say what he really meant.”
I suppose Poole may soon be looking for a new job as a religion reporter.