San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich. AP FILE PHOTO
LOS ANGELES—Gregg Popovich, the famously taciturn coach of the San Antonio Spurs, didn’t hold back Friday (Saturday, Manila time) discussing Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Popovich — who has guided the Spurs to five NBA titles in 21 seasons as coach and been tapped to coach the US men’s national team — said he was still getting to grips with the fact that Trump was elected despite “the disgusting tenure and tone and all of the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic.”
“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 said. “We live in a country that ignored all of those values that we would hold our kids accountable for.”
Popovich said it didn’t make him feel any better to contemplate the possibility that Trump wouldn’t follow through on some campaign promises, such as dismantling the Obamacare health care insurance law or building a wall between Mexico and the United States.
If that’s the case, Popovich said, it “makes you feel it’s even more disgusting and cynical that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up. To get elected.”
“I’m a rich white guy, and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it,” he added. “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. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all of that. My final conclusion is, my big fear is — we are Rome.”
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