Editor’s note: the following was emailed to NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, and to the Tryon Daily Bulletin.

Dear Mr. Goodell,

I, like most of America, am an NFL fan. The league that you and your predecessors have built is formidable and very entertaining. However, the recent actions by some of your players are, at worst offensive, and at best very misguided, and detract from the “ NFL experience” for many fans like me.

Please don’t misunderstand that comment! Mr. Kaepernick and the other players who have joined him have every right, and perhaps even a responsibility, to protest what they and many see as social injustice in our country. However, there is a constructive way and a destructive way to do so and in my humble opinion they have chosen the latter!

Why not turn that energy toward inner city outreach, and meetings with police to talk about the right way to do things (I am sure with the celebrity status that these athletes enjoy both would be well received, and result in positive changes, and be supported by all of us in any way we could!

I love my country and I abhor injustice practiced against anyone or any group, and I believe that the vast majority of my fellow Americans feel the same way. I want a solution to all this at least as avidly as Mr. Kaepernick! I differ in that I think a positive approach always wins over a negative one. The way to make progress on this issue is to reach out to both groups, the police and the policed, and form some ground for mutual understanding. Who better to do that than high profile NFL players and coaches? No one in my opinion!

Any protest and or action taken in an effort to resolve this lack of justice, or any other wrong that exists in our country, should be undertaken with great care to make sure that it has a chance of really changing things in a positive way, and one of the ingredients in that, in my humble opinion, is the respect and love for our great country that is best presented in our pledge of allegiance:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” If we find ourselves divided let’s find a way to be indivisible—if we see liberty and justice for all in jeopardy let’s all work in a positive way to gain that liberty and justice for all people. But let’s find a way to do that which does not require anger, lack of respect, accusation, frustration and social unrest.

Your players, in my opinion, have the resources and the notoriety to do just that. I encourage you to encourage them to get busy and to stop showing disrespect for the symbol of the nation that made their resources and notoriety possible.

 ~ Jim Cole, Tryon, N.C.