Harrison Butker and Staying in Your Lane

Harrison Butker is good at precisely one thing

Curmie is willing to bet that the graduation speech to receive the most press this season will not be that of a major politician, business mogul, or performer, nor will it be at a service academy, Ivy League school, or huge university.  No, it was given by someone you’ve likely never heard of unless you’re a football fan, at a small college you’re even less likely to know anything about.

Kansas City Chiefs placekicker Harrison Butker gave the address at Benedictine College, total enrollment a little over 2000, in Atchison, KS.  Butker is an outstanding kicker, one of the principal reasons his team is once again the Super Bowl champion.  He is also a conservative Catholic.  That combination—being a hero in Chiefs country and manifesting what appear to be the school’s (or at least the president’s) principles—made him a logical choice for the gig.

Butker’s comments were, to say the least, controversial, although it’s unclear if the majority of the people to whom he was speaking felt that way.  To the rest of us, well, the sexism, homophobia, and irrelevant political commentary didn’t sit quite as well as it might have.  Go figure.

Indeed, it doesn’t take him long to shift gears from congratulating the graduates to an attack on the alleged hypocrisy of President Biden.  Curmie isn’t familiar enough with Catholic doctrine to know whether this attack has merit, but he does know that bringing out the partisan politics barely 30 seconds into a graduation speech is tacky at best, even at a school where the overwhelming majority of the graduates are likely to agree with you.

It’s also a little difficult to figure how Joe Biden, apparently the Devil in Catholic’s clothing, was “behind the COVID lockdowns” when he didn’t take office until about ten months after they happened.  He may have advocated such actions, but they were initiated under the administration of that other guy, the one Butker will no doubt be supporting in the fall because being a hubristic, mendacious grifter is apparently the very essence of Christianity.

Of course, the line that seems to have drawn the most criticism is telling the female graduates “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”  He subsequently urged male graduates to “Be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men.”

Frankly, the first statement is likely denotatively true: that among that group of women, many yearn more to be wives and mothers than to have what society deems a successful career.  Curmie knows not a few women who have impressive professional credentials but who nonetheless value their familial relationships more.  It’s the connotative implication (not outright statement) that women will have to choose one or the other that rankles.  And rankle, it does.  Plus, of course, the whole leaning-into-masculinity thing is precisely why there is, and must be, such a thing as feminism.  I mean seriously, ew.

Butker also seems to care a lot about having people “stay in their lane.”  Curmie confesses to being unsure exactly how this comports with a guy who majored in industrial engineering and makes his living kicking footballs, engaging in a profession which provides precious little value to society but sure does pay well, telling the graduates how to be good Catholics and not follow in the paths of the “priests and bishops misleading their flocks.” 

Benedictine College, by the way, exists because of the 1971 merger of an all-male college and an all-female college.  The latter was Mount St. Scholastica College, founded in 1923.  Shortly after Butker’s speech, the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica issued a statement which begins:

The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica do not believe that Harrison Butker’s comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested.    

Instead of promoting unity in our church, our nation, and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division.

True, that. 

Curmie is very much a proponent of free speech, and that extends most importantly to those with whom he disagrees.  If, Gentle Reader, you want to argue that Butker had no right to speak his truth, then Curmie will go to (verbal) war against you.  Conversely, however, if you want to suggest that the criticism he has received is somehow unwarranted because he was just expressing his opinion, well, his critics have the same 1^st Amendment rights that he does.

Harrison Butker is a remnant of times past, a dinosaur trying to compete with mammals.  He is, in Curmie’s opinion, an idiot and an asshole.  Should the Chiefs cut him loose, as some lefties have argued?  Hell, no, or at least not unless he becomes a cancer in the locker room, which is unlikely but possible.  He’s really good at his job.

If only he’d stay in his lane.