Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross declared that all players on his team will stand for the national anthem, beginning next season.
“All of our players will be standing,” Ross told the New York Daily News on Monday at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, where he was honored by the Jackie Robinson Foundation with its ROBIE Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Dolphins saw three players — wide receiver Kenny Stills, safety Michael Thomas and tight end Julius Thomas — kneel for the anthem on several occasions during the 2017 season. Stills is expected to remain with the team for the upcoming season, Michael Thomas is set to become a free agent later this month and Julius Thomas likely will be released.
“Initially, I totally supported the players in what they were doing,” the 77-year-old Ross said. “It’s America, and people should be able to really speak about their choices.”
Ross, however, told the newspaper he felt the message being sent by kneeling players was unpatriotic and anti-military.
“When that message changed, and everybody was interpreting it as that was the reason, then I was against kneeling,” Ross told the Daily News. “I like Donald (Trump). I don’t support everything that he says. Overall, I think he was trying to make a point, and his message became what kneeling was all about. From that standpoint, that is the way the public is interpreting it. So I think that’s really incumbent upon us to adopt that. That’s how, I think, the country now is interpreting the kneeling issue.”
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the movement to kneel during the national anthem as a protest to denounce police brutality against African-Americans, social injustice and racial inequality.
Ross did not reveal the consequences should a Dolphins player elect to kneel during the anthem in 2018.
