Sage Steele, the newly minted morning SportsCenter anchor and woman who complained about being inconvenienced at an airport because people were protesting an unconstitutional Muslim ban that ripped apart families and detained old people and toddlers for hours, doesn’t want to talk about Colin Kaepernick’s anthem protests, or white supremacists in Charlottesville, or any other trivial nonsense that might distract from what really matters: NFL highlights.
In an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show she said this about the coverage of Colin Kaepernick being blackballed from the NFL for his social conscience:
“Trust me, I have a problem with it. I do not look forward to discussing this on ‘SportsCenter,’ I really don’t. And we are going to be doing things a little bit differently. I mean, on NFL Mondays, you will see every highlights from every game played on Sunday. Every one. Doesn’t mean they’re all going to be two minutes, but we’re getting back to that, to more sports — I know, God forbid. And not that we haven’t done it on other shows, but that was a key for me. So these discussions need to be had, and there are crossover topics like this that will be discussed. But [I’ll be] talking to Herm Edwards, and [guests like that] don’t want to talk about it all that time, either, because it is what it is. Is there news on it? No, so move on.”
And this is how she explained why people tune in to SportsCenter:
“In my opinion, it’s not to hear about Charlottesville. … It’s about the games, it’s about the highlights. Let’s show some standings. Let’s talk about what’s coming up tonight. I’m just old, I guess, old-school.”
The argument against “sticking to sports” is so well understood by most people it feels redundant to lay it out again, but here goes: SportsCenter is not some holy sports sanctuary that will be tarnished beyond saving if it ever touches on newsworthy topics outside of sports, and people who think it is are boring at best or disingenuous at worst. Who can say which category Steele falls into.
For a more complete summary of her remarks on the Dan Patrick Show, head over to the Washington Post.