Nearly a year of incarceration in a foreign tyranny forced a basketball star to discover a renewed appreciation for her country.
Brittney Griner, a 6-foot-9 center for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, reversed a personal policy recently when she stood for the national anthem before her first games since her release in December. Previously, Griner either knelt or remained in her team’s locker room during the anthem as a racial protest.
Griner, a former All-American at Baylor who led the Bears to the 2012 NCAA championship, made the WNBA’s post-season first or second all-star team six times and helped the Mercury win the 2014 WNBA title. Griner also won Olympic gold medals for the United States in 2016 and 2020. She is one of only 11 female players to win NCAA, WNBA, Olympic and EuroLeague championships.
“With what I went through, everything just means a little more to me now,” Griner said May 19 after playing in the Mercury’s regular-season opener. “I was literally in a cage and could not stand the way I wanted to. So just being able to hear my national anthem and see my flag, I definitely want to stand now.”
In 2020, however, Griner held a far different opinion. That year, with riots raging nationwide in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, Griner stated the WNBA must not play the anthem before games.
“I honestly feel we should not play the national anthem during our season,” she said at the time. “I think we should take that much of a stand. I don’t mean that in any disrespect to our country. My dad was in Vietnam and a law officer for 30 years. I wanted to be a cop before basketball. I do have pride for my country.”
Other WNBA players shared her stance. When that season began, entire teams stayed inside their locker rooms during the anthem. But Griner added she would continue protesting regardless of what others did.
“I’m not going to be out there for the national anthem,” she said. “If the league continues to want to play it, that’s fine. It will be all season long. I’ll not be out there. I feel like more are going to probably do the same thing. I can only speak for myself.”
Griner eventually modified her protest by kneeling, as did former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. She only stood when she received her gold medal with the rest of her teammates at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which the COVID-19 pandemic postponed for a year.
“At the Olympics, I understand,” she said. “You’re playing for your country at that point.”
But in February 2022, Russian police arrested Griner in Moscow when customs officials found less than one gram of cannabis oil in her vaping cartridges. Griner went to Russia to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA’s off-season.
Most WNBA players compete overseas to supplement earnings that pale compared to NBA incomes. UMMC Ekaterinburg pays some of Europe’s highest salaries, with Griner having earned more than $1 million per season.
During her trial, Griner testified that her doctor in Arizona prescribed medical marijuana to treat pain. But medical marijuana is illegal in Russia.
That May, the State Department designated Griner as “wrongly detained.” Griner pleaded guilty July 7 to possession but said she had no intention to break any law or use cannabis oil in Russia.
On Aug. 4, the court sentenced her to nine years imprisonment, one year less than the maximum, and fined her 1 million rubles (or $16,301). The standard sentence in Russia for anyone caught with less than two grams of cannabis oil is 15 days.
Before Russia released her Dec. 8, Griner spent her sentence in a women’s prison in Mordovia, a Russian republic about 310 miles southeast of Moscow. An article in The Guardian described the conditions she faced:
“Russian penal colonies are known for their harsh treatment of inmates, unsanitary conditions and lack of access to proper healthcare. Conditions in penal colonies are much harsher than in detention centers. Activists say abuse and torture are frequent in Russia’s vast network of prisons, a successor to the notorious Gulag system of the Stalin era.”
Olga Zeveleva, a sociologist at the University of Helsinki who studies the Russian penal system, characterized penitentiaries in Mordovia as uniquely appalling.
“Prisons in Mordovia are notoriously terrible, even by Russian standards,” Zeveleva told The Guardian. “The prisons there are known for the harsh regimes and human rights violations. It is a place any prisoner wants to avoid.”
A popular saying reinforces that image: “If you haven’t done time in Mordovia, you haven’t done time at all.”
Griner even expressed fear in a handwritten letter dated July 4 to Joe Biden, the virtual president, imploring him to act.
“As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” she wrote. “It hurts thinking about how I usually celebrate this day because freedom means something completely different to me this year.
“I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American Detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home.”
So when she played her first WNBA game in 19 months on May 12 in a pre-season exhibition in Phoenix, Griner stood for the anthem.
“Hearing the national anthem, it definitely hit different,” she said afterward. “It’s like when you go for the Olympics, you’re sitting there, about to get gold put on your neck, the flags are going up and the anthem is playing, it just hits different. Being here today, it means a lot.”
Griner’s incarceration motivated her to expand her portfolio of activism. She now works with Bring Our Families Home, which supports the 54 Americans whom the State Department considers to be “wrongfully detained.” Griner also used her Instagram account to generate support for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovitch and Paul Whelan, a former Marine and a security advisor for Borg-Warner. Both are detained in Russia.
By standing for the anthem, Griner now views it as a reflection of national values rather than as an expression of oppression. She even defends those who disagree, especially for the reasons she offered three years ago.
“I totally support them, 100 percent,” she said. “You know, we’re fighting a good cause. One good thing about this country is that you have the right to protest, to be able to speak out, to question, to challenge. That’s our right as an American in this great country. Sometimes, you get labeled as a non-American. Actually, I think it makes you more American.”
That equitable attitude expresses the tolerance Griner’s ideological colleagues support only with lip service.