Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich ‘Sick to My Stomach’ Over President Trump
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich tore into the election of Donald Trump as the nation’s 45th president in a passionate six-minute speech to reporters where the five-time championship-winning coach admitted he’s “sick to my stomach” over the election results.
“Not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenure and tone and all of the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic,” Popovich said (via My San Antonio).
“I live in that country where half of the people ignored all of that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of the whole thing to me.”
Popovich called out Trump’s hateful rhetoric in his tirade as well as the incident where the then-Republican nominee mocked a disabled person.
“That’s what a seventh grade, eighth grade bully does. And he was elected president of the United States,” Popovich said. “We would have scolded our kids. We would have had discussions until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things. He is in charge of our country. That’s disgusting.”
Popovich joins fellow NBA coaches like Golden State Warriors’ Steve Kerr and Detroit Pistons’ Stan Van Gundy who were critical of Trump’s election.
“[Trump’s] angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. That’s ironic to me. It makes no sense,” Popovich continued. “So that’s my real fear, and that’s what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that’s necessary to understand other groups’ situations.”
Prior to Election Day, Popovich joked that he was voting for Basketball Hall of Fame-inducted coach Don Nelson.
“I’m a rich white guy, and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can’t imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African American, a Hispanic, a handicapped person. How disenfranchised they might feel,” he added.
The Spurs coach ended his monologue by saying of America, “We are Rome,” another empire that ultimately collapsed.
Hear Popovich’s comments below: