On February 25th, Dwayne Wade found out that one of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victims had been buried in one of his jerseys. Joaquin Oliver was such a massive Heat fan that he wanted to be buried in one of their jerseys.
Wade, the future hall of fame shooting guard for the Miami Heat, did not take this lightly. In fact, he took this as the motivation he needed to not just “shut up and dribble,” an order barked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham on February 15h. She was talking to Lebron James, who had made his opinions on gun control and President Trump known in the days after the Parkland shooting. In an interview with ESPN’s Cari Champion, James said “The No. 1 job in America, the appointed person is someone who doesn’t understand the people,” and he also called some of Trump’s comments “laughable and scary.”
Many players took Ingraham’s comments to heart and felt that she was not only talking to James, but to every professional athlete. “It’s always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid $100 million a year to bounce a ball,” she said. “Keep the political comments to yourselves. … Shut up and dribble.”
On February 26th, as Wade tweeted his feelings about Oliver and Ingraham:
This is Joaquin Oliver. He was one of the 17 young lives that were lost tragically at Douglas HighSchool in Parkland. Joaquin was one of many that i heard was excited about my return to Miami and yesterday was buried in my jersey. This is why we will not just SHUT up and dribble! pic.twitter.com/X0tfTTao33
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) February 26, 2018
Speaking to the Miami Herald, Wade went on to further explain:
“You really can’t put that in words,” Wade said after practice Monday. “You hurt for the family and if you’re able to get an opportunity to speak to them, you just try to hope that the time where he was alive, that you was able to bring some form of joy to his life and something memorable, a story that you guys can talk about. I don’t even know the word for it. Like I retweeted on Twitter, I said, ‘You’re going to make me cry.’ It’s emotional even thinking about that, that his parents felt that burying him in my jersey is something that he wanted. I take a lot of pride in what I’ve done in this state and what I’ve meant for the youth, so I appreciate that.”
It doesn’t seem that Wade will be keeping his opinions to himself and certainly won’t “shut and dribble.”
