D.C. United players Brandon McDonald and Dwayne De Rosario before a game against Dallas last week. (Photo by Tony Quinn/Icon SMI)Earlier this week, the Post touched briefly on the fact that four D.C. United players—Dwayne De Rosario, Brandon McDonald, Maicon Santos and Nick DeLeon—took the field for pre-game introductions last Friday wearing hooded sweatshirts, ostensibly in response to the death of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who was fatally shot in February by a neighborhood watch volunteer acting under a statute that permits ordinary residents to use lethal force.
I had a chance to speak with De Rosario and McDonald after practice on Thursday to gather their thoughts on the situation.
DeRosario, a father of four, said the issue hit home with him. “A 17-year-old kid…I have kids and I would fear for my kid that just because he decides to wear a hoodie he’d get shot. That part of the whole situation, we don’t tolerate that and we’re taking a stand.”
While some may think that athletes in general should veer away from commenting on social and political issues on the job, De Rosario clearly disagrees. “That’s their opinion,” he replied bluntly. “And that was our opinion,” he said about Friday’s display. “As players and athletes, we have guys that wear hoodies when we travel,” he continued.
McDonald shared his teammate’s sentiments: “He’s hit it on the head.”
The D.C. United players join a growing list of athletes who have reacted to the issues of racial profiling and race relations raised by Martin’s death. Members of the Miami Heat posed for a photo in which the players wore hooded sweatshirts, as Martin was wearing the night he was shot. On Twitter, New York Knicks players Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire expressed outrage over Martin’s killing by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, while NFL linebacker Ray Lewis attended one rally calling for justice in the wake of Martin’s killing.
The NBA Players Association also issued a strong statement calling for Zimmerman’s arrest, while the NFL Players Association put out a statement aligning the league’s players “against any form of injustice.”
Debate continues over the circumstances that led to Martin’s death and the value of the “Stand Your Ground” law under which Zimmerman claims he was acting, but at the end of the day these guys aren’t just soccer players—they are fathers and community members, too. They are as entitled to express their opinion as any of us—they just happen to have a larger stage on which to do it.
