Whitlock: ESPN’s latest ‘courage’ award reaches a new low, surpassing Caitlyn Jenner

ESPN, the worldwide leader in lies, seems rather determined to redefine and lower the standard for what constitutes courage.

How else do we explain that in the course of two decades, the network’s award for courage went from Pat Tillman sacrificing his life in military combat to a group of lying narcissists fighting for a pay bump?

Courage ain’t what it used to be.

Wednesday night, the Disney-owned sports network labeled the U.S. women’s national soccer team as courageous for its highly effective propaganda campaign to elevate player salaries.

At its annual ESPY Awards, ESPN bestowed the Arthur Ashe Courage Award on the spoiled, greedy, and delusional soccer squad. Before the team took the stage to smugly accept their award and embellish their arduous journey for “equality,” ESPN set the tone with a dishonest highlight video that smeared one of its former employees.

Will Cain, now a talk-show host for Fox News, was cast as a misogynist pig standing in the way of equal pay for female soccer players. Producers at ESPN edited an old sound bite of Cain talking on “First Take.”

“I think equal pay is a ridiculous concept in and of itself. Soccer, for better or worse, on the men’s side across this globe is much more popular than the women’s,” Cain said before being abruptly cut off.

The video then flashed to women’s player Julie Foudy saying, “Oh, we hear that argument all the time.”

The problem is Cain had much more to say. He explained that the salary and bonus pay for the USWNT is drawn from the revenue created by the women’s World Cup, which is around $130 million. The men’s national team is paid from the revenue created by the men’s World Cup, which is around $6 billion. On a percentage basis, American women are paid astronomically more than the men. Furthermore, Cain rejects the idea of equal pay because he believes all people should get paid what they’re worth.

“If the women generate more revenue, they should get paid more than the men.” Cain said. “Don’t strive for getting the same. Strive for getting what you’re worth.”

The sports world has reimagined courage in just 20 years. Last night’s ESPYs were a low point for the Arthur Ashe Award. And, yes, I’m well aware that ESPN previously handed this same award to gay, late-round NFL draft pick Michael Sam and to Bruce Jenner for changing his name, style of dress, and pronouns.

This is worse. Sam and Jenner at least risked ridicule.

The U.S. women’s national soccer team has been the toast of the American media since Brandi Chastain stripped to her sports bra in 1999. They’re the most celebrated and entitled athletes on the planet. The penalty for questioning the outright lies they tell to line their pockets is expulsion from the mainstream media. To remain in the good graces of corporate media, you’re required to pretend Megan Rapinoe and company faced fire hoses, police canines, and burning crosses and lived on government cheese to win a gold medal.

It’s all a lie.

The lie is being propagated in hopes that WNBA players are successful in executing the same scam. Though the WNBA loses millions of dollars annually, corporate media continues to argue that the tall, tatted lesbians of the WNBA are worthy of massive pay increases and private travel.

Anyone noticing a pattern? The lies all seem to serve the same special interest group. Brittney Griner, Michael Sam, Caitlyn Jenner, Megan Rapinoe, William “Lia” Thomas, and on and on all play for the Alphabet Mafia.

Courage used to be about risking your life and/or livelihood in service to a cause with the appearance of nobility. Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety, joined the military after 9/11. He thought he was defending America and avenging an awful crime.

In January, former NFL running back Peyton Hillis nearly died after jumping into the ocean to save his niece and son from drowning in a rip current. Hillis spent three weeks in the hospital recovering. It was quite the act of heroism.

But in modern society, that doesn’t compare to a group of women using the media to blackmail the U.S. Soccer Federation out of $24 million.

In the sports world, thanks to ESPN, courage is any act that empowers the LGBTQ, the feminists, and the matriarchy. It’s the longest-running reparations campaign in the history of the world.

Black people are the face of the American reparations movement. Gay people and women are the actual beneficiaries. We’ve been convinced they’re owed a debt. It’s a lie.

No country on the planet has invested more money in the development and safety-netting of women than the United States. The return on that investment has not improved this country. It’s only increased the number of people, groups, and identities seeking reparations.

We’re less educated, motivated, and innovative; more entitled, complacent, dysfunctional, immoral, and divided; fatter, lazier, and unhealthy.

Men have been simping since the garden. Our entire existence has mostly revolved around satisfying the whims, emotions, and feelings of women so that we retain access to our favorite place on earth. If you have to ask what that is, you’re not meant to know.

It’s going to require Pat Tillman-like courage to fix the mess we created. Weak men must die. That death starts with the weak and unrighteous man in your mirror.