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Kirk Triplett is a floppy-hat-wearing, 58-year-old, white professional golfer with a happy life, a wife, four children and a social conscience that he couldn’t ignore.
When Triplett decided in August to put a Black Lives Matter sticker on his golf bag at the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club, he did it because he couldn’t shake what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis.
He did it because he is the father of an 18-year-old adopted black son. He did it because he and his wife also have an adopted 20-year-old Latina daughter and he did it because he has 24-year-old twin sons.
He did it because he wanted – needed may be more accurate – to do something.
It was the older sons who asked Triplett the question only he could answer.
“Dad, you talk a lot, let’s see your game. What are you going to do?” Triplett remembers them saying to him.
Activism comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s loud. Sometimes it’s subtle.
Sometimes it’s a small thing – like a sticker on a golf bag – that is a big thing.
Sometimes it’s a guy you might not expect who takes a stand and, without being pushy, reminds everyone around him of what’s happening in our country and the need for change.
“For me it was just an idea of putting this statement – Black Lives Matter – in a place where you don’t typically see it,” said Triplett, who will play in the PGA Tour Champions’ SAS Championship this week in North Carolina.
“I started researching it a little bit and sort of landed on the idea of the sticker. Really to just kind of say I’ve felt some of this through my own family, certainly not to the degree the African-American community feels it but I want to let the African-American community know I’m hearing what you’re saying.”
Kirk Triplett
This didn’t happen overnight.
Triplett pays attention to the world around him, watching news shows and reading different perspectives. He has worked as an advocate for adoption and knows first-hand what it means to parents and to the adopted children.
With his adopted son, Kobe, Triplett has a sense of the challenges facing Blacks in America today.
“It really started with his driver’s license,” he said. “You tell your kids regardless – compliance, respect and you do what the officer asks. And then when you see what’s going on in the world we’re kind of taking this a step farther and, ‘Hey, do you understand what’s going on?’
“ ‘Do you understand you might find yourself in a position where both sides are getting a little amped up and you really need to be able to de-escalate and take time?’
“That’s unfair. That’s sort of the first inkling I got of how some of the African-American community feels and feels toward the people that are supposed to be protecting them.
Professional golf is many things but it’s not generally on the forefront of societal change. While the PGA Tour has donated more than $3 billion to charity through the years, more than all other American sports leagues combined, golf can also be seen, rightly, for what it isn’t – as racially diverse as our society.
Particularly at the professional level, golfers skew toward conservative politics and introducing the Black Lives Matter movement to the senior circuit was a profound move by Triplett. That doesn’t make him Colin Kaepernick but it makes him impactful.
“Golf has always done a great job of reaching out to those who can’t help themselves or maybe defend themselves,” Triplett said. “The tour takes credit for a lot of work people do locally and a professional golf tournament is oftentimes a vehicle to make things better in your community. To me this is just a different application of that mission, of trying to help some people gain a voice or recognize their voice.
“I’m not trying to co-opt (the BLM) message. I’m not trying to take it over. I’m just really trying to say I’m listening. You tell me what we need to do. Is it new legislation? Is it new programs? Is it police reform? What is it? What are the things that are required to make this better?
“I think we’re at the stage right now where the two sides are a long way apart and there’s a lot of scorched earth in between. You’ve got to figure out how to get together in the middle somewhere.”
When Triplett played his first event with Black Lives Matter on his bag, he was going about his business at Firestone when he noticed a social media person from the tour waiting for him. Did Triplett want to talk about the sticker?
“I really hadn’t thought about that part, that I had to explain myself,” Triplett said. “We worked through it and I developed a few things that hit on the reason why, and he put it out there immediately and it got the exact reaction on Twitter and other places you would think it would.
“So many people writing to say that’s awesome, it’s fantastic. Thanks for saying something. Other people trying to educate me, saying that’s not the route you want to go, this isn’t what you do. Then there were some pure hate ones, too.
“To me, I would never let that small portion stop me from the decision I arrived at.”
Among his peers, Triplett said the reception has been positive. He knows not everyone agrees with him and he’s OK with that. He’s been in enough player meetings through the years to know how strongly some players feel about some things.
Triplett doesn’t know how long he will keep the Black Lives Matter sticker on his golf bag but he sees it as one step in a personal process that may lead others to follow him. The tour has made a public commitment to putting charity dollars to fight social injustice.
Though the details have not been released, Triplett said he will be a part of whatever the tour does. He already has researched African-American golf organizations to learn more about them and how they might be helped.
Because he’s a middle-aged white man playing golf for a living, Triplett seems an unlikely activist. There are many who say sports and politics should not mix but those lines have been crossed. While Triplett may not reach 47 million Twitter followers like LeBron James does, his willingness to stand for what he believes in resonates in its own way.
“It’s unfair to only have Harold Varner or Tiger Woods or Cameron Champ ... it’s unfair to expect those guys to be the ones to speak out about it all the time,” Triplett said. “It’s fine that they’re asked but we should be supporting them by supporting this.
“There are a ton of opportunities to use golf as a bridge in the community. We’re always asking them to come to us. I think it’s time for us to go to them.”
Kirk Triplett has taken the first step.
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