This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning.
Tragedy struck America yet again yesterday after a gunman shot and killed 19 little kids and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
This is normally a column where we have fun talking about sports, but today isn’t a fun day. It’s an incredibly sad one.
It’s a sad day for those parents in Texas who lost their children yesterday. I can’t imagine what they’re going through and all of our hearts go out to them.
It’s a sad day for our country, which just continues to have days like these with people offering their thoughts and prayers and doing little else to prevent tragedies like yesterday’s from happening again.
It’s sad that so many of our elected officials are cowards and don’t want to do what needs to be done to protect our children and make our country a safer place with, at the very least, some common-sense gun regulations.
It’s sad that a basketball coach has more heart and compassion and emotion than many of those leaders who are quick with their prayers but slow with everything else.
That was on display again last night when Steve Kerr gave this emotional speech before the Warriors-Mavs game. At one point he was so upset he pounded the table with his hand and yelled, “WHEN ARE WE GOING TO DO SOMETHING?”
Here are his words, which need to be read and heard by everyone.
“I’m not going to talk about basketball. Nothing’s happened with our team in the last six hours. We’re going to start the same way tonight. Any basketball questions don’t matter.
“Since we left shoot-around, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here, and a teacher (the number later rose to 19 kids and 2 adults). In the last 10 days, we’ve had elderly black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo. We’ve had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California. Now, we have children murdered at school.
“When are we going to do something? I’m tired, I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough.
“There’s 50 senators, right now, who refuse to vote on HR-8, which is a background check rule that the House passed a couple years ago. It’s been sitting there for two years. There’s a reason they won’t vote on it: to hold onto power.
“I ask you, Mitch McConnell, and ask all of you Senators who refuse to do anything about the violence, the school shootings, the supermarket shootings, I ask you: Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children, our elderly, and our churchgoers? Because that’s what it looks like. That’s what we do every week. I’m fed up, I’ve had enough.
“We’re going to play the game tonight, but I want every person here, every person listening to this to think about your own child or grandchild, mother or father, sister or brother. How would you feel if this happened to you today? We can’t get numb to this. We can’t sit here and just read about it and go well, let’s have a moment of silence. Yay, go Dubs. Come on Mavs, let’s go. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go play a basketball game.
“Fifty Senators in Washington are going to hold us hostage. Do you realize 90 percent of Americans, regardless of political party, want universal background checks? We’re being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we, the American people, want. They won’t vote on it, because they want to hold onto their own power. It’s pathetic. I’ve had enough.”
Let’s go, political leaders.
Do something.
It’s about damn time.
We’ve all had enough.
