Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker was an unlikely source of one of the bigger sports media stories earlier this year when he used a commencement speech at Benedictine College to explain his views on family, women and faith. The speech drew an impassioned response from everyone from Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder to FS1 host Chris Broussard and beyond, and this week, Butker doubled down on his comments.
Fresh off a big, new contract with the Chiefs, Butker spoke with the Associated Press to explain why he chose to opine on such polarizing issues and his thoughts on how his comments were received.
“I’ve just decided, You know what, there’s things that I believe wholeheartedly that I think will make this world a better place, and I’m going to preach that,” Butker told the AP. “And if people don’t agree, they don’t agree, but I’m going to continue to say what I believe to be true and love everyone along the way.”
Butker did not consider his statements sexist and wished the media and public would not put him in that box.
“My whole career, I’ve talked about how I’m a husband and I’m a father before it comes to me as a kicker, something I’ve always preached,” Butker said. “But then when I use that to talk about women, I say that they should embrace and love being wives and being mothers over their career; I think then it gets construed that I’m trying to put women down, which I’m not at all.”
At Benedictine, Butker called out what he described as “diabolical lies” and told the women graduates to be proud if they chose to be mothers and housewives rather than working professionals. Butker also encouraged the men in the crowd to “be unapologetic in your masculinity” and fight “against the cultural emasculation of men.”
While SiriusXM host Michelle Beadle told Butker to “go f*** yourself,” Broussard believed the narrative around Butker was blown out of proportion.
Comparing Butker to a social justice advocate like Colin Kaepernick, as The View host Whoopi Goldberg did following Butker’s speech, might be a stretch. But Butker certainly has as much a right as anyone to use his platform as a famous NFL athlete to discuss his views. And to his credit, he has not backed down or gotten into the mud.
Butker spoke his mind and stood by his perspective.
