I have to admit, I rarely watch the ESPY Awards.

I really have no good reason why I do not watch them. I guess athletes honoring athletes just does not appeal to me.

But I picked a good night to watch most of the program because the kickoff of the show was powerful.

National Basketball Association superstars Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade an LeBron James took to the stage to call to action its fellow athletes.

The foursome, who is all good friends, spoke out about the national epidemic our country is facing right now.

They addressed race, police violence and community involvement.

They called on all athletes to step up and help create social change, much like Jim Brown, Billie Jean King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other did before them.

And as much as I liked what I was hearing and I am truly in support of their ideas, the reality of it is that talk is cheap.

Like I was taught by my parents, “actions speak louder than words.”

And while we all need to hear those words come out of the mouths of Anthony, Paul, Wade and James, we also need to see action, not necessarily by just professional athletes, but by a vast majority of our country.

Let’s face it, athletes make up just a small percentage of our population.

They have a strong voice and I believe that they can get many to take up their cause, but it is going to take a grass-roots effort involving everyday Americans to turn our country around.

It is going to be a tough sell, believe me.

Like everything, it starts from the top and trickles down. But when you look at the mess our government is in and the direction the 2016 election is heading in, I find it hard to believe that we can get a majority of our nation on board.

I have not lost faith that this is still a great country. But I have to be honest; I have begun to lose faith in our governmental system.

Over the last decade, there has been a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots. Sadly, our government has done nothing to stop that divide from growing and may in fact played a big role in creating the gap.

At the state and local level, we need our leaders to step to the plate and start giving its citizens an opportunity to help restore out country to its greatness.

Even closer to home, our community leaders need to start thinking of ways to bring people together for a common cause, much like sports does.

If you look at the stands at any sporting event you see friends and families made up of black, white, Hispanic, Asian and other races sitting together and cheering for their favorite local team.

They do not see skin color, but a uniform color that stands for just one thing — togetherness.

I believe we can use sports to lead the charge.

But it is going to take more than four athletes speaking on a stage to get it done. To use a coaching term, “we are all going to have to buy in” before anything can be done.

Now is the time. And perhaps Wednesday night’s ESPY Awards was the place. Only time will tell.

 

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com.