Coach pop's surprising politics.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Edge of Sports - Gregg Popovich

A midst the storm of the NBA playoffs, in the highly combustible Western conference there is one team that year and year out is able to maintain a stunning consistency: the San Antonio Spurs.

In the smallest of NBA markets, they have, over the last two decades, not only survived, but thrived.

Much of their recent success has been anchored by the greatest power forward in NBA history: two-time Most Valuable Player Tim Duncan.

The other mainstay, the person who has organized a team of deadeye shooters and unselfish passers around the unflappable Duncan, is their future Hall of Fame coach, Gregg Popovich. No one doubts HH that the man they call Coach Pop is one of the finest to ever patrol a sideline. But even more intriguing than his command of X's and O's is what we could call "the politics of Pop."

Superficially, Popovich looks like the 1960s stereotype of a "hard hat" who smacks around hippies for sport. He has the crew cut, the Air Force pedigree, and the gruff demeanor that Archie Bunker would approve of. But look again.

I first became curious about the politics of Pop in 2011 when I was doing a book event with John Carlos, the 1968 Olympian immortalized when he raised his black-gloved fist after the 200-meter sprint, and Professor Cornel West. After the event, a member of the crowd came forward. It was Popovich. He had come to the panel without fanfare, after reading about our appearance in the Village Voice. Coach Pop then proceeded to buy copies for everyone on the Spurs.

I went up to Coach Pop and tried to make him feel at ease, assuming, wrongly, that he might feel a bit like a fish out of water.

I said to him, "The person with John Carlos is Cornel West."

Coach Pop shot back, "I know who Cornel West is. I do have a life, you know."

Coach Pop told me his story of seeing John Carlos and gold-medal winner Tommie Smith do the fist salute when he was a young man in the U.S. Armed Forces, and said that "it electrified me."

After this event, I started to research to see if Pop had made any political comments in the past. I saw...