Kansas City Chief
Harrison Butker is now in his eighth season with the Kansas City Chiefs. He went to college at Georgia Tech and graduated with a degree in industrial engineering, but eventually ended up pursuing football in the NFL. During Butker’s time spent at Georgia Tech, he also played on their soccer team from 2013 to 2016 and was their lead scorer in school history. In his last season there he was captain of the soccer team. Despite this Harrison Butker was a seventh-round pick during the draft in 2017. Harrison went to the Carolina Panthers practice squad, but then in September of 2017, he was let go and re-signed with the Kansas City Chiefs. He has even been a factor in them winning many games and helped during the Super Bowl when they were against the 49ers. Finally, Butker is #7 on the Chiefs and has 8 years’ worth of experience in football.
Kicking it Back to Benedictine
On May 11th the Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker spoke at Benedictine College located in Kansas at their Graduation, throughout his 20-minute speech to the graduates he brought up many bold and controversial ideas. In the beginning, he talked about how he said no the first time to made this speech. That originally he declined because in the past he had spoken at Georgia Tech, his alma mater, and didn’t think he wanted to do public speaking like that again. Harrison Butker announced in a speech, “But I have no other choice but to embrace it and preach more hard truths about accepting your lane and staying in it.” He started with this as an opening for the ‘truths’ he was going to speak about later on during his speech. Harrison went on to express his views as a Catholic on certain topics like pride and women’s rights. Harrison said, “A deadly sin sort of pride that has a month dedicated to it.” He was saying that God holds real pride in life and that it is basically wrong for pride to have a whole month dedicated to it. Also, he said, “The world around us says that we should keep our beliefs to ourselves whenever they go against the tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Throughout his career, he has formed a reputation for himself based on his Christian beliefs. He has made various different groups of people upset and angry through his statements. More importantly, all he did during his speech was put groups of people down and list disrespectful things about those people. Even after quoting Taylor Swift, who is his teammate’s girlfriend at this time, he stated, “Women find more fulfillment through getting married and having children than by pursuing careers.” It’s very ironic because he quoted a woman who is a strong feminist and someone who isn’t focused on getting married and having kids. Whether he meant to hurt and anger many people doesn’t matter because in the end he still suppressed a large portion of the country’s population.
Reactions around the Country
Many talk shows are responding to what Butker said on Saturday, May 11th. There are various perspectives that are being stated. On one hand, Harrison Butker was giving a graduation speech at a Catholic college which preaches many of the ideals of what Butker stated. While on the other hand, it was also wrong to speak this way about women being inferior to men. During the TODAY show with Hoda and Jenna on Thursday, May 16th they shared their thinking on the subject. Hoda did this by saying, “ Stop speaking for women out there.” That women in today’s world have the right to speak their thoughts and that a man shouldn’t be doing it for them. Butker’s evidence of the statement he made about women was that his wife, “I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” That his wife follows through with her vocation. Therefore, there are good and bad views. I think that it definitely wasn’t the best thing for him to say. He shouldn’t have targeted certain people like that. During The View on May 16th Whoopi Goldberg weighed in on the conversation. She said, “I like when people say what they need to say. He’s at a Catholic college, he’s a staunch Catholic. These are his beliefs and he’s welcome to them.” Different from many others’ views on this speech, she stands up for Butker. She feels that it is important for people to be able to speak their minds in this country. These are a handful of views on Harrison Butker’s speech at Benedictine College in Kansas.
NFL’s and Teammates Response
After Butker made his speech on Saturday, May 11th about gender roles and pride the NFL has also been feeling a lot of pushback. They have tried to distance themselves from any statements made by Butket during his speech. Now the NFL spoke out on Wednesday, May 15th by saying that any information presented by Butker shouldn’t reflect back on the league. (NFL) Also, they spoke out by saying that anything Harrison Butker said is on him and him only and that it shouldn’t lead to different views of the NFL because that wasn’t theirs. However, the Kansas City Chiefs themselves have not responded to the many requests for answers. They have chosen to stay quiet. While the whole team didn’t respond to anything regarding the speech on Tuesday, May 14th Patrick Mahomes spoke out about the great importance of women’s sports. That it’s just as important as it is with men. As a result, this is all of what little the NFL has responded to and how Patrick Mahomes technically referenced it too.
