“My view was that nobody’s gonna tell me whether I should salute the flag,” David Meggyesy says. “It’s my decision.”
His decision was made nearly 50 years ago, only a short time after Americans John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists during the national anthem at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
“I stood on the sideline with my helmet in front of me and my head bowed,” says Meggyesy, now 75. “My thought was, I was too chicken to raise my fist in the air.”
Ex-NFL anthem protestor applauds Colin Kaepernick and athletes supporting him
"Before Colin Kaepernick, one NFL player silently protested the national anthem, and it was closer to the time that Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their protest, than to when Kaepernick made his.
But David Meggyesy, former linebacker, activist author and players'union executive, was alone among players back in 1968. Kaepernick has now been joined by a teammate, a fellow NFL player and, notably, U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe last weekend"