Craig Hodges

sports can help get us there again. And the truth is it can, maybe even in more ways than you think, And even if we're off the field just trying to rebuild, so as we face unprecedented times in this country, I continue to talk to athletes and sports industry professionals about what they're doing right now, hoping to figure out if famous competing as much as I miss watching it. This is the No Sports Report. Craig Hodges played in the NBA for ten seasons and is considered one of the

greatest three point shooters of all time. He's one of only two players who win three consecutive three point contest

during All Star Weekend. The other is Larry Bird. Hodges also holds the record for the most consecutive shots made in the contest with nineteen, and is tied for most points scored in a single round at He won two NBA championships with the early nineties Bulls alongside Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and was an instant offensive threat, But it was the threat of Craig off the court as a political activist that seemed to outshine his undeniable stats.

When the team visited the White House to celebrate their NBA championship, his decision to wear a daishiki and attempt to get a letter to President Bush found him labeled as militant and a problem within the NBA. He questioned black representation in the league and had revolutionary ideas for African American players to shine a light on issues within the black community. A year later, his time in Chicago ended abruptly, and he was then ignored and denied to

work out with any other team in the league. It became obvious to anyone following the game at the time that he was being blackballed. The following year, he became the first free agent to compete during All Star weekend, defending his three point championship in an NBA logo jersey, since he couldn't get signed by a specific team. As our nation faces a familiar problem of prejudice and racial inequality.

I can't help but notice Craig Hodges has been at the front and center of these issues since he entered professional sports in the eighties, and he paid the price for it. Today we talked about his past, our present, and his hopes for the future. This is Craig Hodges on the No Sports Report From Creig Hodges to Accept Press One. Hello Craig, Yes, I wanted to first start off just by asking where you've been quarantined and how

you're holding up during the the COVID pandemic. Well, first of all, just pointed out for hopefully everybody's well and saved this crazy period of time man on this rogo right now in the South suburb. Well, I'm happy to hear that everything is going well with you, but clearly the events of this past weekend unfolding. I wanted to talk to someone who has had a racial identity and politics that I've always looked up to and helped shaped, you know, help shape me sort of a white kid

growing up in the suburbs. And and even if this wasn't a sports podcast, you truly were the first name that I sat when asked, and it means a lot for me to be able to talk to you today. So for people who don't know who Craig Hodges is, is there any way you could kind of go over your upbringing and how as a kid you first got into activism growing up? Yeah, well, once again I was Bush the nutho came down in the Hodges how so

James twenty nine, at the height of the Civil rights movement. Um, my mom was instrumental in as part as being the secretary of the movement in the South suburbs. And you know, during that period of time, there wasn't baby for it.

So where Mom, when you went? And I was at all the meetings, watching a love leadership, watching Robert Low who was the president of the organization, and to see how it was when, you know, when everybody was repressed from the same telling, the same pressure from the same place, whether you're a millionaire or a bus driver. And for me, how's it called? Coming home? Ninety eight April fourth and and my granny and mym crimes I got never say

before it Dr King had been murdered. So from that point on I was on the quest to see what his life meant and how much it mentor so many people and then to have you know, models in front of me like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, Tommy Smith, Jim Brown. And my family was one that was My granddad was the he was the director of the parks in our community. And my granny was the homemaker and stabilizer. So for me, I was blessed to have anch who taught me how

to read before I went to school. So education was primary and secondary was my athletics. So it's truly m a trainer of student athleticism with the overriding principles that undergrated so the civil rights movement, social activism, and now where we face is truly a human rights situation that the planet has to face that has never been taught to about it. Really wanted to really look into the

depths of it. Yeah, absolutely, And your basketball skills, like you said, your athleticism sent you to the West Coast, out to Long Beach State to play where you had a friend to become a victim to police brutality. Correct, Yeah, no doubt. And once again, you know, I think text winner Laura rush isself for recruit me at Northwestern and then he got to drive the Long Beach State he

took me the Long Beach State UM. I was blessed to have had Dr Malanikringer, who's the founder of Plans as my first professor at Long Beach, and I was turned on. And that was almost just a reconnection of what I had landed his child and how important what we were doing in the movement was concerned. And during that period of time, during my first three years, I had a chance to become friends of a better body

man of Ron Settles. It was the premier football player and I was just pretty a basketball player and me the summer before I senior year, he was murdered by the Signal Real Police and UM Sitnal World, California, and you know the data that happened. Happened June six, and I recalled before I left LL, I never really came on campus because you met of golf campus. But the two days before I got ready to leave, he came on campus looking for me, and he was just telling

me how he was gonna be ready. He's getting ready in the summer because he knew he's gonna get drafted in the NFL and at the Dallas Cowboys was looking at him and I said, I didn't know who was gooding at me, but we were gonna have great senior years.

And I was coming home to Chicago the train and then I get a call to find out he had been he has been hung in his jail cell and and it was it was a very eye opening thing for me, and and that far when we went back to school, we protested, and you know, it was there was value of lessons for me and as far as how valuable life is and how oftentimes we are looked at, we are looked upon as equals, and those who were uniforms often times have a certain eager trip that they're

on for whatever reason. And and Ron happened to be the victim of that that so many other people. Once we had covered the truth of what was happening and sticking the heel police for itself, for me, there was a it's another endue quest man, the truth and justice and for human rights for all people on the planet. Yeah. I'm such a big fan of your book that was released, which we'll get into a little bit later. And I remember,

I think the detail is he went to jail for speeding. Correct. Yes, And the thing about that was, you know, it was it was camera showing and it didn't go down and what they said, So it was a lot that went on then. And then to find out that the other victims of the Signal Hell police force which was only like a police officers and one of which was got by a name of Jid Round, Jerry Wilson or something

like that. But you know, it was it was crazy, man, just to have had that experience as a year old, to know that, you know, life is precious and and you have to protect it. And when one of your you know, one of your partments will victims, you can't you can't stand by and watch. You have to, okay, some type of proactive measure, but you have to make sure that you maintain your fability and when what is uh,

what is life? Men? And you know, being twenty years old, like you said, and the era in which you were, you were in college, like, were there any ramifications for what happened back then? What were the chances of justice actually being served or getting to the truth. Well, you know that that was one of Danny Cockinents first big cases. So he was able to get the family some restitution.

But you know, I think at that point in time there was we were still in that climate where cops having violence against young Bladen man with the other centers all over the country. That was at the height of that, you know, and there was the height of the all of the the stuff come along with the crack and everything else. It was one of those things where the almost suspects on site as opposed to it would actually

went down. So, you know, we have to realize that it today's combination of a live has gone on for the found years and when not a country is coming to a drastic reality of it's not just black people. I think people of all nationalities and ethnicoes and cultures and relating to are can the realities and the injustice of gone on that gives you Black men and black people in America for years? Absolutely, And and so let's

get to the NBA. You have an incredible tenure career playing with the San Diego Clippers, the Bucks, the Sons, but most notably the Chicago Bulls. You won two championships with them. The team obviously we've been seeing a lot

of during the pandemic with Michael Jordan's ninety two. After winning the ninety two championship, you visit the White House as most teams do that win, and you visit the president at the time, which is George Bush, and and explain to people who don't know the story, what controversy came out of this visit. Well, you know, actually is I told the first one went after the first campionship

and gave President Bush and letter. Actually I wrote a letter as night before we went, and I had planned on win African Daishiki, you know, because that's how it's caught growing up, is that whenever you come to a royal event, become with your culture. And for me it was was probably one of the greatest days in my life. Man. Then as far as representing um people who can't represent the plays and delivering their message to the most possible

man on earth. Whether you read it or not, I don't know, but uh, through my research for my book, and and the book has has been optioned by the producers A Black Mirror in Britain, so we're getting really and I have a documentary and future film come out on the book, which is you know, it's another great thing for me and as far as been able to utilize its the economic vehicle as opposed to just my

own personal wealth. For me and my family. Um, and you know that thay are to do the things for me man, just knowing that within the context of how you raise you can't stand unflexible. And you know, the chance to need to take go to the White House, regardless of what it what it may have cost me on an immediate level the next four or five years

which I felt I could have played. Uh, he gave me a chance to you know, become closer and tiedle with my son and to see and being able to be in their lives on the level that I hadn't been for years because of the league. So it was a blessing in the burden then that period of time.

But now I see it for what it is is lessons learned, and you know, lessons learned for this period of time where we can you know, be strong and courageous and the strategic in the manner in which we come out of this thing and not be re actionary and violence. And you were only thirty two at that time, correct, Yeah, same age as Kevin Durant right out. I mean someone

watching from afar right. So for for research for this, I remember you being in a daishiki was was a very big deal in the press, and doing research for this, I thought that I would find pictures and that you would be very much ostracized at the White House and not smiling, and it was literally the exact opposite. You're having a ball, George Bush asked you to shoot a

three pointer. You guys are all laughing together. I'm so surprised by the militant angle that was taken by the press and to people like me who were sports fans at the time about that visit and the letter, which I remember people saying was about the Gulf War, but but it wasn't. You had a completely different angle in

the letter. Absolutely, and that's the part where you know, the stand that can happen from professional sports franchise is from professional sports in general is media driven, and if the media is into with the franchise, that the franchise has a certain look at a player, then that player

is going to be pilted in that night. And for me it was one that you know, he's for salmon and rather, don't you know, no one asked me what the letter said until I did thirty with ESPN, and they never showed it, which is funny to me again of how you could to come out and do a whole documentary about the letter and then never released it

because or whatever. And when we were filming and I told them, I said that they're not gonna let you show this because it's too important and it's too clear, and it wasn't anything bash in America or any of that. Is just laying down the historical facts of what my people have been through, as well as those who have

been disenfranchise. It's not just about black people. It's about brown, yellow, red, and white who evolved in um totally disenfranchise in so many ways because it's only about the rich and the powerful that have been able to flex their their will and power over people. And you become a free agent at that time after this, you know, quote unquote controversy, and you don't get any any tryouts from any other

teams in the NBA. Even the Bulls coach who you know, Phil Jackson at the time, who was coaching you, doesn't understand, even looking back now, how someone with your three point average uh and and you know your athleticism at thirty two wasn't given that. And so a lot of people in the league believe you had been blackballed right. And you know, the funny part about it is that when I came in SWAG in nineteen eighty two, I was

drafted to forty eight player selected. There was no pretty point shot in college basketball and during that period of time. So when people look at my career and they said, and then needs a pretty point shooter, that's cool. But I was I'm a professional basketball player. And then my my basketball intellectors. You know, I I challenge anybody on the planet when we want to sit down and talk basketball and strategy, look get at it. So from that end, and I was talked by the best, I was talked

about tech s winner. I came into a league under Paul Silence. I had Jimmy Lynon, I uh don, I had done Nelson, I had kind of send me by

a bad Collins, and I had Till Jackson. But then when we talk about the staff, just to coaching staffs under Phil Jackson alone, when you talk about a hundred years of service, when he come about Johnny Back, Jim Clemens, Text Winn and Frank Hamblin, you're talking about you know, you're talking about guys who had you could just you could just learning from them just about sitting next to

them and not saying anything. So right, right, So for the fact that you're coming off the two World championship and three consecutive prepoint titles and no one wants to even bring you in, it's it's crazy insane, you know. Yeah. And and before this instance, and I remember this from the book, you had talked to Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan about boycotting that game one of the NBA Finals as a response to the beating of Rodney King and and they looked at you like it was crazy, right.

And you know, the funny part is that when we look at the hierarchy of both society and then whatever realm you're in, there's a certain pecking order, and if you're on the bottom part of that packing order and the people aren't hearing you, man, it's almost you know, you casting aside and anything that I'm saying to agree

unless we're on the court hoop. And I guess, but you know, from me, it was one of those things where I talked to Michael about, you know, opening up the same manufacturer we have overseas in America, and that's being able to produce, choose and stuff here, and that's the part that I felt like we kind of missed a boat in its pri championship on both levels, Chicago

and Los Angeles, two of the biggest media markets. What would happen if we would have said, we're going to have a work stoppage and we want to change the condition of police and civilians and you know, we want to protect the Sarah to really mean something. But at that take period of time, I was asking us to boycott in order to create some type of ownership black ownership within the league. Having the lead looked reflective on the ownership level to what was on the court. And

it continues today. You know, I've seen yesterday what the lead is talking about, some type of um ratial justice committe or whatever. I'm glad to see that. Hopefully they'll bring in the mood up the role for myself and other players who are short feel like they have been castigated in the past. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was right around the same time of the beating of Rodney King, correct of that game that you would you would ask

maybe to boycott. Absolutely, it was. And that's you know, and that's the thing where you know, how oftentimes, man, I think you know, we have the ability to turn the blind eye or play ignorance to causes and issues because it's not palpable to be endurance since we may have or to a deal, we may be trying to strike or whatever, and we have to start to put

to human the human condition above money. And that through that, I think is one of the things that I have a lot of love for is what Lebron has been doing and and not being afraid to stand with what's right. Man. Everybody knows this way. Yeah, well, ironically I thought, I mean, I thought of you pretty quickly when I saw on Sunday that Michael Jordan put out a three paragraph statement

about racism and brutality. Did did you get to read it? Yeah, saying that this morning, and I was and and you know, once again and I give a pause where Paul is due man, and I loved my brother and I never

you never have not. You know, they've been to agree with a lot of a lot of the principles that he supported and endorsed, and as far as products and and the like, so that you know, it's not on need to judge anyone that it's going everyone to come to their consciousness and do what they feel necessary to given time, but too much, as given much is required. I was with him when they were riding in Miami and ride and stopped just so we could come down

to Miami so they could see Michael Jordan play. So I know the power and impact that he has. So him putting out a statement is it is very good. I mean, it's um, it's timely and hopefully it would just be the start of much more more with Craig Hodges after this. Right now, Feeding America is working tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable population, like students who are out of school, the elderly individuals whose jobs are impacted, and low income families continue to have access to food

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you can help Feeding America dot org. Backslash COVID nineteen and now the rest of my chat with NBA legend and activist Craig Hodges. So let's talk about this past weekend. Now, what went through your head when you saw the horrific

video the murdering of of George Floyd. Well, it's just just a continuation then, and I think for I think everyone, any human beings, Ah, the we canness in it, saw the unholiness in it, saw the vitality, and you know the fact that you can murder someone and feel comfortable with doing it and thinking that you're going to get away with it. And I think that's the part and parcel of what white suffromacy, racism, and the systematic brutality

have gone on, unh untried, unprosecuted, unjustified. And now we're seeing where the planet is riding up there, having demonstrats in Tokyo, Japan. Black Lives Matter, Germany, Black Lives Matter. So that's telling us that the human condition is one that vibrates worldwide and that what effects one affects all. So those who have power and might are waking up

this morning with a different idea and scope. When you think about the magnitude of people power and people being able to take this thing and take anger to a level where they're destroying it, and they're destroying the system. And you know, it looks like it may be a wal model and maybe a Maciez or maybe this or that, But when we look at the root of it, then people are angry with the system and they don't have any way to express it in a lot of manage other than to strike out. And for me, I don't

I don't justify it, but I realized it. We like Dr King realized, he said in ninety eight, the evil triples the racism, militarism and economic injustice. We have to fight with every given breast. So when how can he tell young brothers in nineteen sixty eight not to throw model to our cocktails when this country is going over there to vietnambalming the people and destroying in the family unit.

So that's where we are today, when we see the powerful protect themselves with the police force, with the military might and be able to help hold acas doctrines. Man For me and on my level, when I look at the NBA, how can Donald Sterling, How can Donald Sterling be a racist and get two billion dollars for a golden parachute to leave. Believe that's telling you how many other people in the league had that same policy of mindset. Absolutely uh. And in your book you had talked about it.

And one of the reasons that you had approached other players to boycott game one after the Rodney King beating is because you realize the riots in the media, there was a problem between the word thugs and the oppressed, and we're seeing that again. This is you know, decades later, and it is the same exact discussion. Do you think we will ever understand the difference between those two things?

This is what's happen and man, is that what we're getting ready to overstand him is redemption and reconstruction of the people. And that's what you're getting ready to see among the African people worldwide. In America's first and that's why the world as I am America and how they're treating the former slave because we're not slaved anymore. And that's the problem that the systems to the system was built on us being slaves. Pitio. No one wants to

face that issue. No one wants to face that you're sitting on the capitalist system you're at the top of it now that you're inheritance factor, the inheritive factor of where you're sitting on the job, the inhertives factor, whether you're a CEO of a fort or five hundred company that dates back five hundred years, and and how those how the ramifications is that is is coming up with this people that's rioting, but it's not rioting. Is rebellion

against a system that is crooked at the core. So the foundation of America is one built on white exceptionalism and that you know, and you know, it's a wild to me manage. I was studying Market Center and how the connections of and the filters through to Hillary Clinton.

And you're supposed to vote for Hillary Clinton is black folks and everybody really, but we don't study we don't study our Hillary Clinton with Margaret Singer is a who rock, Margaret Singer who came up with this doctrine that I want to eliminate black people, and no nobody want to question that as Americans. I'm talking about American's question that we have to look into ourselves. And when I'm putting myself as an American, I tell I have the right

to do that because my people built the country. Now, going on that point, those who look at us in a blind eye and say, man, they ain't got no you know, and no black fathers, you know, you're killing them. So you're asking young black lin to grow up with our fathers that they didn't seem murdered, and then you want them not to have some type of rebellious steered

about it. Come on, and you know how many fathers are in jail that could be out here and jail on trump up charges or charges that I nowhere near them, having ten fifteen years in prison away from these young boys on the street. So now me of the years the young brother looking out here and still being a young mindset, and how many brothers can I take under my wing who ain't got fathers around to take care of,

you know? And then how many of us don't have that mindset because we've been brought up on this capitalist system where it's all about me and I just want to get mine. So I want to be a multimillionaire, so I can add ten houses, and we gotta break that model. Man. So I love that NJA coming out. Maybe that will break that model. If I want to be like Mike and just be a millionaire and half cards and models, a ritees and all of this. You know what I'm saying. Then, So it's a whole new

vibration going on, brother, And I'm so blessed. I feel so blessed to be on the planet to see it happening. Because when you say it's a man, it's happened right before our eyes. So this is the whole prophecy that that was told. You know how long we've been here, man, America is gonna be shut down. You better make sure you have groceries for two weeks. You better make sure you have water. How long have we heard that? I'm

fifty nine. I heard that as a baby during the Civil Rights movement, thinking that forning was gonna happen, not knowing in was gonna be the time that it is truly gonna happen where America is gonna be chaotic like a third world country. So what I'm looking at is Venezuela. What I'm looking at is Panama. What I'm looking at? And why is it happening to America? The richest, most powerful country by our president standard by he says it all the time. We are the greatest and everything is

a competition. So within that, that's been the American mindset. When when when? When when when at all costs, win, at all costs that we have to drop a bomb on na Yasaki and Hiroshima? When at all costs that we have to destroy the planet? Heurge, When did all costs? Western Empire? Sharting with Britain, Why are you're in the shape that you're in? Why are you in the shape that you're in? America? And she we are who we are, We're here and were It's not like we have a choice.

Our souls come down, man, you know, and it bothers you. I mean, did you ever looking back now, do you consider your activism at that time so ahead of its time, even though it cut your career short? Do you see that as your legacy? Which would you do it all over again? And that's the mus let's talk about it. We laugh about it that my office side went to a demonstration he got in California. He went to a demonstration yesterday in San Diego and that's the first one

he ever went to. And he's like, man, Dad, I see where you're coming from. Then I understand you now, And he said, man, I was wrapped up into it. I said, yeah, he was in something bigger than yourself on side and he's like, man, and I never felt like that before. I said, yeah, you'ven't been on championship teams,

but it ain't nothing like that, huh. I was like yeah, Because when you're standing on principles undergird humanity, something that date predates yourself, that's something man and to feel that and have that energy as something that's powerful and then's something that is only captured in certain generations. In this generation is being able to feel a palpable energy where something has been wrong on the front of for so

many millennia and now is trying to change it. And when I look across the spectrum of leadership across American and I see how many African American women are in position of the power. I see the transitional phases coming where the African woman is being restored to her rightful placed under the sun and we are experiencing the birthing tanks of that. Well, I can't thank you enough for what you've done in the past and for doing this interview.

But again, like I said, being uh an NBA fan, white guy, in the suburbs, and and and watching your career and what you've done and what you stood for. I I commend everything we're catching up to you. Craig Hodges brother. You know it's so crazy, you know, say you and I have um have two year olds right now, Okay, I have an eleven month old. Well great, great, Okay,

I don't let's put taken the second what we're talked about. Okay, if we put them on the ground together in the play pin thing, you don't see white or black, you know, they not, they not. If we if I came on to this planet and I and everything was just people, that's the people. That's the people. That's the people you don't and people who look how they look and they have whatever you they have. But somebody put into my

mind that white is better than black. As a little boy, as a little boy is as a nine year old going to the park, we have to be back on the other side of the tracks because if we weren't, white was gonna get you. And that's a sad state of affairs to put on the line of a young person who's ready to be a brilliant spectrum of what God has in store for their lives. All of that is stunned by uh falsehood that just because you look

different than me, you're better in me, and that did Yeah. No, I thank you again, man, and I push everyone to go pick up the book Longshot, especially now. It resonates even more than did a couple of years ago when it first came out. And thank you for talking to me today, Craig. Everybody water and stay out of the way of the madness again. You mean a lot to me, Craig Hodges, Thank you for everything you do. The No Sports Report is produced and distributed by tree Ford Media.

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