Donald Trump has once again injected himself—and of course, his politics—into our Sunday afternoon quiet time, the Super Bowl. The mouth that roars ensures that the biggest game of the year is overshadowed by controversy, and allows him to once again live rent free in our heads, as he did in the 2016 Kapernick season. His recent comments about Patrick Mahomes, in which he wrongly credited Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville with coaching Mahomes at Texas Tech, are just the latest in a string of political distractions leading up to Sunday’s game. And now, with Trump expected to attend the Super Bowl, Mahomes will be carrying this noise into the game, whether he wants to or not. Trump lied, sending Tuberville into a state of political suicide, if he sets the record straight. Every sporsfan with a modicum of critical sports theory, knows that Tuberville never ever breathed a breath of coaching to Mahomes, from his job, way over in Cincinnati. At best scouts may have pointed Patrick out to him as he exited the Tech campus and the kid was still in high school. Mahomes was actually recruited by Texas Tech after Tuberville was good and gone. The kid flatly denied the senator’s quiet claim that he was recruited by him.
The quarterback’s focus should be on preparing for the biggest game of the season, not on correcting misinformation or dealing with unnecessary political distractions. But Trump’s insistence on making the Super Bowl part of his ongoing political spectacle only amplifies the pressure on Mahomes and the Chiefs.
If Mahomes loses on Sunday, we’ll never know how much this circus played a role. Did the added media frenzy affect his preparation? Was the distraction too much for the Chiefs to handle? While football is supposed to be an escape from politics, Trump’s involvement ensures that it won’t be that simple. Instead of enjoying a Sunday afternoon watching the game, fans will be subjected to the latest round of political grandstanding, making it impossible to separate sports from the noise surrounding it.
Every president finds himself chiming in on pop culture from time to time, But trump feels it to be his appointed duty to pass judgement on every passing fancy that blows his way, even as innocently as the wind blowing across the dust in the superbowl.
Story: Charles Jackson
