Sep 11, 2026 · 1h 2m
How 9/11 turned sports into a stage for patriotism
Howard Bryant on How 9/11 Changed Sports Forever | 09.11
The episode examines how grief, security, military symbolism, and pressure to conform reshaped sports—and still influence debates over protest and politics.
- 1Sports shifted from entertainment and escape toward national mourning, patriotic ritual, security, and political messaging after 9/11.
- 2Mandatory-seeming rituals and first-responder symbolism narrowed acceptable dissent, helping shape the backlash against Colin Kaepernick’s protest.
- 3The unity surrounding sports’ return after 9/11 proved powerful but difficult to recreate amid polarization and politicized crises.
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Bryant and Jones use Pat Tillman’s service, friendly-fire death, and the government’s handling of his story to show the human cost of sports’ patriotic narrative.
The brief
Howard Bryant and Bomani Jones begin with the shock of 9/11, when sports briefly seemed irrelevant before becoming a public venue for grief and national response.
As games returned, teams competed to represent grieving communities while patriotic rituals, military symbolism, security measures, and “God Bless America” became fixtures.
The conversation links those rituals to conformity: elevating police and first responders as patriotic symbols helped frame Colin Kaepernick’s protest as an attack on national identity.
The most revealing case is Pat Tillman, whose service, death by friendly fire, and the government’s handling of his story exposed the costs of sports’ recruitment narrative.
Bryant and Jones end by asking whether sports can again unite people during crisis, arguing that polarization now makes the post-9/11 version of solidarity unlikely.
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