Padecky: Chiefs kicker Butker entitled to his obsolete opinions

It’s a question I have never thought to ask but, thank you Harrison Butker, for making the obscure relevant: How much does a four-year education cost at Benedictine College? Before May 11, I would have found the life cycle of a salamander more interesting.

Counting tuition, lodging and food it would cost roughly $48,220 a year to go to this private Catholic university in Atchison, Kansas. Give or take, course. Financial aid, notwithstanding. So mom, dad and offspring would be on the hook for about a quarter million dollars.

On May 11, a bunch of moms and dads attended the graduation ceremony at Benedictine. A commencement speech was given. As is custom, it’s an exhortation to charge into the world and make it a better place because of all the wisdom that had been accumulated. Think of it as a very expensive pep rally in formal wear.

When Butker, the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, was through speaking, it would have made sense for Mom and Dad to fall back into their uncomfortable plastic chairs and mutter to themselves, “What da hell did we spend all that money on, to listen to this? Could have bought a Mercedes and gone to Cabo instead.”

In the course of his speech, Butker attacked those who believe in abortion, gay rights, in vitro fertilization, the “emasculation” of men and the emergence of transgender women. While those viewpoints created enough heat, Butker created a fire that would last long after he retired.

Women have been told, Butker said, “diabolical lies” about having a career. “I have a wife,” Butker said, “whose life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and mother.” Among other things.

Commencement speeches, typically, are sunny, providing optimism for brighter days, congrats on all the work done, charge forward, you’re smart, you’re capable, you’re going to kick some booty. Boo-yah!

Instead, the message here was: It’s great you have a college education but, oh well, back to the kitchen with you. Grab your aprons, bottles of formula and petticoats. Make sure dinner is on the table at 6. Don’t forget to take out the garbage, it’s starting to smell. The kitty litter is getting a little funky. A man’s home is his castle and needs to be tip-top especially if he has clients over for dinner.

As a charge forward, this commencement speech was a backpedal, back to the early ‘70s for example, when women were first allowed to have credit cards. And when women were first allowed to play full-court basketball. Confidence was high that running wouldn’t damage their reproductive organs.

Commencement speeches usually are reviewed by the university. Unless someone in the administration was sick that day and couldn’t review it, Butker’s speech was read and approved by the school. That would have led to another question.

“Harrison, did you read your speech to your mother?”

Elizabeth Keller Butker is a clinical medical physicist at Emory University in Atlanta. Her field has been special brachytherapy and Gamma knife medical physics. Elizabeth started there in 1988. Her son was born July 14, 1995.

Mom started her career seven years before Harrison was born, which would be a direct contradiction to what her son espouses. What does Elizabeth think of her son’s opinions? Both of Butker’s parents – his father also works in the same oncology department – are notoriously private people and have not commented publicly.

Of course, Butker’s speech was a lead balloon to Benedictine’s female graduates and mystified many. Why? One possibility exists. This is based on my own college experience. I knew of women who graduated who had no intention of using their degrees. It was acquired, in their mind, so they would be more attractive to college-educated men. Does such a wrong-headed and self-defeating attitude still exist? I hope not.

Butker’s speech drew heavy criticism but what wasn’t reported was the audience reaction. Butker received a standing ovation when he finished. One TikTok user, Susannah Leisegang, reported hearing men scream, “Hell yeah!” as she shrunk in embarrassment.

To be fair, Benedictine College is a conservative Catholic College in a conservative state. To also be fair freedom of speech is a constitutional guarantee. Butker has every right to utter his opinions. Controversial that they may be, no matter what. Disagreements without violence are healthy for a democracy.

What is not healthy are views intractable and inflexible, autocratic and argumentative to where there are no options allowed. Just as some women prefer to be a mother and wife, others should not apologize for focusing on a career. And then there is Butker’s mother who accomplished both spectacularly. Options, Harrison, are the freedoms democracy gives all of us.

The football player would be intrigued if he was to google, “Alysia Montano, Pregnant.” Butker would see in a still picture Montano, 31, five months pregnant, approaching the finish line at Sacramento State on June 22, 2017. Montano was running in the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships.

It was an 800-meter race. Montano is a six-time national champion in that event. She was showing all right and she was smiling ear-to-ear. She received a standing ovation just as she did in 2014, having run the same race when she was eight months pregnant.

Montano finished dead last in both races but“I shaved 10 seconds off my 2014 time.” Guess running five months pregnant as opposed to eight months made her feel like a deer.

ESPN should invite Alysia Montano and Harrison Butker to sit across from each other and discuss. Butker might ask her what it was like to run in 100-degree heat that 2017 day in Sacramento. He might ask how Montano prepared, if anyone tried to stop her, if she was scared of losing the baby, if she was trying to prove something (duh).

Harrison might do it. He might even say he has a new respect for women. He might even say he learned women can be more than baby ovens. Yeah, he might. Maybe.

To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com