Foyle goes on the record
<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com Gwen Knapp Tuesday, April 1, 2003
Adonal Foyle, the record-shattering center for the Golden State Warriors, accepted some sheets of paper after a practice last month. Someone had photocopied a story from Mother Jones and knew that he would be interested. That was how Foyle broke a record, by clutching the article, eager to read another take on the McCain-Feingold Act, to absorb more information about campaign-finance reform.
In 16 years as a sportswriter, this was the first time I had seen a professional athlete within a mile of Mother Jones. That's some kind of record. The NBA and the Elias Sports Bureau might not recognize it. After all, Bill Bradley probably picked up a copy or two on his way to the U.S. Senate. The record still stands, if for no other reason than that Foyle deserves to be a record-breaker.
In a perfect world, he would be Shaquille O'Neal, the dominant player at his position, the biggest man in basketball. He would be interviewed constantly, invited to do Jay Leno every other week.
Sports don't work that way. The smartest, most interesting athletes generally aren't the superstars. They are the backups and the scrubs.
The point here isn't to bash star athletes. It's not to say that I think Foyle is smarter than all of his teammates, or everyone else in his business.
It's that I think he is smarter than I am.
It's that a recent conversation with him was more fascinating than the ones I have with people in my business.
"If we say that it is acceptable to invade another country because we perceive a threat from it," he said shortly before the start of the war on Iraq, "then what do we tell Pakistan? How can we tell the Pakistanis that India does not pose an immediate threat to their security?"
He went on and on, listing other tense regions (North Korea-South Korea, anyone?) where pre-emptive strikes could be rationalized all too easily. He wondered, rhetorically, why the Bush administration tolerated a leader whom many consider a dictator in Venezuela, but not in Iraq.
"Is it because he will give us oil?" Foyle said.
I wish I simply could play the entire tape for you. Quoting him is about as useful as typing up a description of Julius Erving in midair. A capsule can't do justice to either of them.
Foyle's point of view is appealing partly because it has so much range. At the time of our interview, he did not want to stake out a position on whether the U.S. should invade Iraq. He wasn't absolutely certain that a war, with U.N. approval, would be wrong. He simply wanted more information, more intelligent debate.
That is refreshing, in a record-setting way. As much as sportswriters long for prominent athletes to speak on social issues, what we mean is that we want to see more Arthur Ashe and Steve Nash. If the speakers are Reggie White, John Rocker or Charlie Ward, we want them to shut up.
Foyle does have a political bent, but it tilts mostly against apathy. He has steeped himself in the issue of campaign-finance reform, which has been championed -- perhaps not with equal sincerity -- by the left, right, Republicans and Democrats. He founded Democracy Matters in 1998 to lobby for reform, and he speaks passionately on the topic, whether he is on a college campus or sitting on the floor of the Warriors' practice gym.
"We cannot let our voices be drowned out," he said. He was referring to the corporate control of government, and to the stifling assumption that questioning war is unpatriotic.
He expresses his thoughts in a perfect blend of power and finesse. In that respect, Foyle is another Shaquille O'Neal or a Barry Bonds. He can put on displays that make an audience say: "I've never seen that before."
Foyle is an immigrant here, carrying a passport from St. Vincent of the Grenadines. He hopes to become a citizen someday. For now, he uses "we" and "us" when discussing this country.
He has become rich in the United States, after growing up in a home without electricity. Yet he understands that this country is supposed to be about more than limitless financial opportunities and consumer options.
His last words from the interview, though, are about the kind of car he wants to buy. He wants the kind that his adoptive parents drive in upstate New York.
"I wish they made one big enough for me," he said, his 6-foot, 10-inch body filling a door frame.
The car is a hybrid, a vehicle that runs on a combination of gas and electricity. I've never heard of an athlete lusting after one before. This might be another record for Adonal Foyle.
E-mail Gwen Knapp at gknapp@sfchronicle.com