Nobody questions Jadan Starks when he sits out national anthems.
Not in the stands at Raiders games, not at college basketball games. Maybe it’s because he’s 6 feet 2 and 320 pounds, a nose tackle in his football days. But if anyone cares to discuss it, he will be glad to explain how he and his high school teammates protested alongside Colin Kaepernick, and why.
“It definitely wasn’t just an in-the-moment thing,” Starks says of the Castlemont High School team’s protest four years ago. “It definitely wasn’t something to do to get some publicity. It’s real.”
The gesture moved Kaepernick to pay the team a surprise visit, one that left a lasting impression, both on the quarterback and the young men from Oakland. He credited those players with inspiring him throughout his protests of racial injustice and police brutality, even as no NFL team would sign him and he faced intense criticism.
Now, Kaepernick’s message has been amplified by countrywide protests against the police killing of George Floyd. Many who did not see him as a leader and a hero back then now do.
The Castlemont kids hopped on that Kaepernick bandwagon before it left the barn, and they’re still on it. Several have participated in recent peaceful protests.
“The moral of Kaepernick’s whole story, what it showed me, is not to be afraid to stand for what you stand for,” says Mike Bell, the quarterback in 2016, “even if that does mean losing your job or something that you love.”
The unlikely mutual support group sprang into existence the week after Kaepernick, the 49ers’ backup quarterback, began his kneel-down protests in September 2016.
The Castlemont players — African American, Latino and Tongan boys — saw Kaepernick drawing attention to some of the same injustices and abuses they had witnessed in their Deep East Oakland neighborhood. They saw the heat and the hate he received for his silent protest.
During the national anthem before Castlemont’s game on Sept. 16, the players all took a knee.
“We just wanted him to know he had support,” says Javon Patton, a wide receiver. “We were trying to help him take a stand. ... Really, we just wanted him to know we were with him, and let our community know we were with them.”
The next Friday, the Castlemont Knights were in the visitors’ locker room at King’s Academy in Sunnyvale when coach Edward Washington announced a special pregame visitor.
Kaepernick strode into the locker room, rocking the big ’fro, no camera crews or media. This was no photo op.
“You are important,” Kaepernick told the Knights in his new commanding-leader voice. “You make a difference. This matters. Everything you do matters.”
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During the national anthem, Kaepernick took a knee while the Castlemont players laid on their backs, arms in the air.
“It was cool to see (Kaepernick), from a fan’s perspective,” says Starks, the nose tackle, “but as far as young Black men, it hit home for me. It was like, damn, he’s really serious, he’s not just putting this on Twitter or shooting a video to us, he came to our game, you know? He stood there with us the whole game, just let us know he was with us and we had his support, and we let him know (the same), for sure.”
Kaepernick came to Oakland, CA. He kneeled on one knee, players laid on their back with hands up during the Anthem. pic.twitter.com/Cae4sTopac
— Kirk Morrison (@kirkmorrison) September 24, 2016
At the time, Kaepernick was not exactly riding a wave of success. Coming off three surgeries, he had lost his starting quarterback job to Blaine Gabbert. Kaepernick’s many critics included presidential nominee Donald Trump, who suggested that the silently protesting QB find himself another country.
Kaepernick welcomed any support, and he got it from the Castlemont kids. Two years later, he received the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal for “significant contribution to African American culture and the life of the mind.” In the ceremony at Harvard, Kaepernick discarded his prepared speech and winged it, throwing love at the Castlemont Knights, recounting his visit.
“One of these (Castlemont) brothers says, ‘We don’t get to eat at home, so we’re going to eat on the field.’ That moment has never left me, and I’ve carried that with me everywhere I went,” Kaepernick told the crowd. “And I think that’s the reality of what I fought for, what so many of us have fought for. People live through this every single day and we expect them to thrive in situations where they’re just trying to survive.
“It’s our responsibility ... to uplift them, to empower them. Because if we don’t, we become complicit in the problem.”
The hunger reference had been metaphorical and literal. For many inner-city kids, certainly many at Castlemont, nutrition is a challenge. Of the school’s 800 students, 92% are classified as economically disadvantaged.
Hunger is a pressing issue, Starks says. “Sometimes I would not eat. To make sure my sisters and my mom could eat, I had to be the one to take it for the team” — his family.
After Kaepernick’s drop-in visit, he did some things for Castlemont and the team, asking that they be kept private, but Washington now blows Kaepernick’s cover on one gift.
“I am gonna tell you this one little bit of what he did,” the coach says. “Some kids don’t eat. Every Friday (the rest of the season), Kaep fed the football team, the cheerleaders and some other students, he bought pregame meals for 100 or more every week. I didn’t ask him to do that. He just said, ‘Man, I want to do this.’ I could have ordered steak and shrimp if I wanted to, and it was going to be paid for.”
Washington, 32, an Oakland native and a 2006 Castlemont grad, was hired as the school’s football coach in 2014, not exactly a plum gig. The Knights were riding a 17-game losing streak. The threadbare synthetic-turf football field has rips big enough to slide a couch through.
Washington, whose primary job is social worker on campus, says he is paid an annual stipend of $2,200 to coach the football team. Some of that largess slips out of his wallet to feed hungry players, pretty much the norm for inner-city coaches.
In coach Ed’s first game in 2014, the Knights snapped the school’s losing streak. That team went 2-8, but they were building something. The coaches stressed scholarship and citizenship. Every Wednesday was a Man-Up Meeting, with a different motivational speaker. Leadership is emphasized, so it was appropriate that the 2016 team’s protest was conceived and led by the players.
“Castlemont is a school of social justice,” Washington says. “That’s one of the things they really push in the curriculum, social justice and social change. When Kaep did his protest, the next Tuesday one of our captains asked me, ‘Would we get in trouble if we took a knee?’ I was like, ‘Hell, no. But what are you taking a knee for?’ I wanted to make sure that they knew.”
After the captains held a players-only meeting, Washington told his team, “I’m going to follow your lead.”
Says Washington, “They were sick and tired of seeing it, man, that’s some traumatizing stuff to see, all these young Black men being shot by the cops, and then you gotta worry about other Black men shooting you. They wanted to take a stand, and they took a stand. ... If we’re trying to create future leaders, who the hell am I to tell them, ‘Don’t do this’?”
After the protest, the players saw some negativity on social media, but they were praised around school and in the neighborhood. But, as wide receiver/defensive back Will Perkins says, “I honestly think Coach Ed may have got the worst.”
“Oh, my God,” Washington says, “I had death threats, man, I had all kinds of death threats, well over 20. They got my phone number, 5 o’clock in the morning you gettin’ a call from Wyoming, Oklahoma, and I don’t know nobody in these states.
“There were people calling the school district, yelling the N-word, asking for me to be fired. ... I met with the superintendent, he reassured me I wasn’t going to be fired, but he was getting hella pressure and letters wanting me to be fired. People wanted me dead, and for the kids to be dead. It was crazy.”
Kaepernick’s visit set off positive events. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf came to school and met with the team.
“These kids are very sharp kids,” Washington says. “They were asking her about gentrification, about business loans that people of color can’t get. She just wanted to check the temperature; I don’t think she expected to have those type of questions.”
A San Leandro High service club held a charity run and raised $4,000 for the Castlemont football program.
Washington says that when word leaked out that Kaepernick was feeding the team, the Oakland Union School District began offering after-school meals.
By the way, the Knights lost a close one the night of Kaepernick’s visit, but went 5-3 over the final eight games, including one playoff win.
Washington doesn’t mention that. He doesn’t talk W’s and L’s.
“Every person that leaves Castlemont leaves with either job training to go into a career, or they go to college,” says Washington, who is back coaching the Knights after taking two years away to deal with family matters. “I don’t give a s— about no wins, if I can help a kid to be a better person, I’ve done my job.”
So how did that 2016 team shake out? A random sampling:
Starks, the big nose tackle, is working toward a degree in social work. “I definitely want to be the change I want to see,” he says, adding that he was heavily influenced and motivated by Washington and Kaepernick.
Patton, the wide receiver, played at San Francisco City College and is interning at Waste Management, training to be a truck driver. Bell, his former quarterback, is playing safety at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Perkins, who has an internship with the Oakland Fire Department, says Kaepernick’s visit has had lasting impact.
“It actually has, to be honest,” Perkins says. “It’s kind of unbelievable, with the pandemic and everything going on, how relevant it still is, how this conversation is still at the forefront.”
Kaepernick’s visit united the 2016 Knights forever.
“When Kap came to that god-dang old school and talked to those kids, that literally changed their lives,” Washington says. “To have someone that successful tell you, ‘I love you, I’m your brother, I’m here for you,’ and really be there?”
As Kaepernick said two years ago at the conclusion of his speech at Harvard, “Love is at the root of our resistance,” he said. “It will fortify everything we do.”
Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler
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