Two-time Super Bowl winner Osi Umenyiora placed Colin Kaepernick, the first NFL player to take a knee during the national anthem, in some legendary company after Nike Inc. made the former 49ers quarterback the face of its latest “Just Do It” campaign.
‘Looking further back down the line, back in history, we’ve already seen what Muhammad Ali, what Rosa Parks have done. And when you look into the future, Colin Kaepernick is going to go down as this particular type of athlete, somebody who took a stand for something he believed in.’
Ali, of course, was stripped of his heavyweight championship when he refused to enlist in the U.S. Army because of his religious beliefs and in protest of racial oppression.
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong,” Ali famously said.
And Parks was hailed as “the mother of the freedom movement” by Congress after fighting against segregation laws by not giving her bus seat to a white passenger.
Ultimately, Umenyiora says, Kaepernick will also go down as an historic figure and “regarded as someone that did something special.”
As for those criticizing Nike NKE, +0.60% for the controversial ad, like President Donald Trump and others burning the swoosh, Umenyiora told BBC Radio 5 that he expects they will look back with regret.
“So Nike is eventually going to come down on the right side of history,” he explained. “We respect the office of the President of the United States but I’m not quite sure what he is doing.” Here was Trump’s reaction to the ad:
Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way? As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch, and always will, until they stand for the FLAG!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018
London-born Umenyiora played for the New York Giants, where he won two Super Bowl rings, and the Atlanta Falcons during his 11 years in the NFL. He currently works as a TV pundit on the U.K.
Nike shares took a hit when the campaign was first announced but have been on the mend since. At last check, the stock was up more than 1% while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.37% was moving lower.
