Top 5 Facts About Colin Kaepernick

Selected in the second round of the 2011 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers, Colin Kaepernick spent his first one and a half seasons as the team’s backup QB. But when starter Alex Smith went down with a concussion in week 10 of the 2012 season, he took the ball and ran with it – literally. Kaepernick’s dynamic play helped lead the 49ers to Super Bowl 47; and while they failed to take home football’s ultimate prize Kaepernick had cemented his status as one of the sport’s hottest up and comers. The following season he once again lead the team deep into the playoffs, but came up short in the NFC Championship Game.

In high school Kaepernick was perhaps best known not for his skill on the football field but for his ability to make opposing batters whiff with impressive consistency. He finished his senior season with a record of 11-2 to go along with 97 strikeouts and an ERA of 1.26. He was offered baseball scholarships to a handful of colleges, but opted to sign with the University of Nevada as a football player. Despite having not played baseball since high school, he was selected in the 43rd round of the 2009 MLB draft by the Chicago Cubs. However, Kaepernick was still committed to making the NFL and chose not to sign with the club.

During a 2016 NFL preseason game, Colin Kaepernick chose, on multiple occasions, not to stand for the national anthem, explaining his decision in a post-game interview by stating “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” The move drew considerable backlash from both fans and the media, with some going so far as to burn their Kaepernick jerseys. In 2018, Kaepernick became the face of a new Nike ad campaign accompanied by the tagline “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” The controversial ad, unsurprisingly, quickly became national news.

From angry Presidential tweeting to society-wide debate, a lot has happened since Colin Kaepernick sparked a movement by first deciding not to stand for the national anthem, so it would be easy to forget that his protest originally manifested itself in the form of him sitting on the bench, not kneeling. He decided to change his course of action after meeting with Nate Boyer, who is both a former NFL player and United States Army Green Beret. Boyer claims that the two “sorta came to a middle ground where he would take a knee alongside his teammates," a common practice in the military when paying respect to a fallen soldier.

Following his highly-publicized 2016 season, Kaepernick opted out of his contract with San Francisco, but then found himself on the outside looking in, failing to receive an offer from any other NFL team. He responded with claims that the league was blackballing him for his political views and not, as they claimed, for any decline in on-field performance. In November 2017, he took things a step further and filed a labor grievance against the NFL and its owners for allegedly colluding to keep him out of the league, and in 2018, an arbitrator ruled that there was grounds for a full hearing. Suffice it to say, we haven’t heard the last of Colin Kaepernick.