Remember last autumn when the University of Missouri football team threatened to boycott a game because of supposed racism on campus, demanded that University president Tim Wolfe resign, and triggered a campus protest, all of which catalyzed a 25% decrease in enrollment and a $32 million drop in its budget?
That action was honored by ESPN, which announced on Friday that that it would give the football team a special humanitarian award, the Stuart Scott ENSPIRE award, at its second annual Sports Humanitarian of the Year awards, held with the ESPY awards on July 12. ESPN said of the Stuart Scott award that it “celebrates someone that has taken risk and used an innovative approach to helping the disadvantaged through the power of sports.”
ESPN gushed:
Racial tensions were becoming increasingly strained at the University of Missouri last fall. Frustrations gave rise to protests — one of the most notable coming when a student at the school began a hunger strike. Students were demanding action, and the Mizzou Tigers football team stepped in and announced that they would boycott their upcoming game unless changes were made. The players took a huge risk — their scholarships could have been revoked and their futures hung in the balance. But their actions indicated it was a risk worth taking to help bring action to this critical issue.
Of course, ESPN ignored the fact that the supposedly racist acts that were alleged to have taken place at the university had no basis in reality. As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro wrote last November, “According to press accounts, four specific incidents drove the ouster of the liberal president of University of Missouri, Tim Wolfe. Three of the four have no evidence to support them, and the remaining incident was rightly investigated by Wolfe’s administration.”
The incidents in question were debunked here.
Of course, ESPN has no interest in the truth; perceived racism is as good as the real thing, and it gives the leftist sports network to engage in virtue signaling in a massive way. This is the same network that gives awards for courage to delusional men who think they are women, so giving an award to a football team for its own virtue signaling isn’t that much of a stretch.