{"id":981857,"date":"2026-08-24T11:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T11:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/981857\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T11:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T11:36:18","slug":"a-decade-later-reporter-who-broke-kaepernick-protest-story-looks-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/981857\/","title":{"rendered":"A decade later, reporter who broke Kaepernick protest story looks back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every August, as the NFL season goes into the depths of its preseason, Steve Wyche thinks back to 2016 \u2014 when the national reporter for NFL Network got one of the biggest sports scoops of the century as the first person to report that San Francisco 49ers<\/a> quarterback Colin Kaepernick was protesting the national anthem<\/a> over the treatment of Black people in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s hard to write modern American history without recognizing that moment,\u201d Wyche told SFGATE last week. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things you remember, like, \u2018Where were you when this happened?\u2019 Well, I was here when this happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week marks 10 years since Kaepernick\u2019s protest was first spotted in uniform at an Aug. 26, 2016, preseason game. Ahead of the anniversary, Wyche spoke to SFGATE on the phone to discuss what that day was like and how he got the story.<\/p>\n

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A longtime NFL reporter who had been at the league\u2019s media office<\/a> since 2008, Wyche said he met Kaepernick when he was a draft prospect at the 2011 Senior Bowl. He had covered the quarterback periodically as Kaepernick took over the 49ers starting job from Alex Smith in 2012, led San Francisco to the Super Bowl that season and remained in the job for the next few years.<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – Reporter Steve Wyche of NFL Network broadcasts prior to an NFL football game between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium on Sept. 25, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn.<\/p>\n

Kevin Sabitus\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

But Kaepernick hadn\u2019t played in a game since November 2015, when the right-handed passer underwent surgery to fix a torn labrum in his left shoulder. (He also had surgeries on his left knee and right thumb.) And as Kaepernick rehabilitated, Wyche noticed his social media activity picking up and him speaking out about many major issues in the U.S. that summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was really speaking out against the things that were happening to Philando Castile and Michael Brown and a lot of the shootings of unarmed Black men,\u201d Wyche said. \u201cHe was just really profound with his posts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kaepernick didn\u2019t dress in either of the first two preseason games, when the 49ers hosted the Texans and traveled to face the Broncos in Denver. But while not in uniform, he started his protest against the national anthem \u2014 even though most people didn\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

Then, Kaepernick was cleared to return and was going to play against the Packers on Aug. 26 in the Niners\u2019 third preseason game, which Wyche was set to cover. He was in the press box just a bit before the national anthem when his NFL Media colleague Mike Garafolo\u00a0called him and told him to keep an eye on Kaepernick, as a source within the organization had told Garafolo he hadn\u2019t been standing for the anthem. No one knew precisely why, but the social media activity gave Wyche a hunch.<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers looks for an open receiver during the game against the Green Bay Packers at Levi\u2019s Stadium on Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. The Packers defeated the 49ers 21-10.<\/p>\n

Michael Zagaris\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wyche looked down during the anthem and thought he saw Kaepernick, but from the eighth-floor Levi\u2019s Stadium press box, he wasn\u2019t completely sure. Few others were even paying attention at the time, and the best evidence was a photo beat reporter Jennifer Lee Chan<\/a> \u2014 then at SB Nation, now at NBC Sports Bay Area \u2014 took of the anthem, with Kaepernick sitting just barely visible in the wide shot.<\/p>\n

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Once Wyche saw that, he said his journalistic instincts \u201cwent abuzz\u201d and he dove deep into research, looking up NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf\u2019s anthem protest from the 1990s. He also contacted his editors and considered how polarized the American political climate was becoming in the summer of 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fortunate I had the experience as a reporter to be able to incorporate all of these wheels of the machine while I was waiting to talk to Kaep,\u201d Wyche said. \u201cIf I were 25 years old, I might not have understood the role that it played. But because I was 20 years into my career, I was like, \u2018OK, all of this could be a factor into the questions that I\u2019ve got to ask Kaepernick after the game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the game began, Kaepernick took the field in the second quarter and played in two drives, completing 2-of-6 passes for 14 yards while adding four rushes for 18 yards in. After the game, Kaepernick did a press conference<\/a> with team beat reporters that was just about football, focused on his return to the field and trying to win back his starting job.<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE – San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif.<\/p>\n

Tony Avelar\/AP<\/p>\n

Wyche was there and prepared to ask more questions about the protest if anyone else did. But the competitive nature of being a reporter kept him from asking right away. Once the press conference ended, he met Kaepernick in the hallway outside and had a one-on-one interview.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think people just thought I was speaking to Kaep about his performance in the game or recovering from his injury,\u201d Wyche said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone at the time realized I was asking him about not standing for the national anthem and why. I mean, there are people walking past the whole conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wyche said he came away from the interview impressed with how clear, concise and profound Kaepernick, then 28, was speaking about the issues at hand. Kaepernick\u2019s answers did not sound rehearsed, but Wyche said he spoke \u201cwith full conviction, with full intellect, with full purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once their interview ended, Wyche went back to the media room to write up what Kaepernick said. At one point, he looked around at the rest of the reporting team that covers the 49ers (which he complimented as a \u201cvery good beat crew\u201d) and knew he was going to give them \u201ca bad morning\u201d of work. But even that wasn\u2019t top-of-mind to Wyche.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve broken a lot of big stories, but this is a big story that\u2019s going to create a splash and a lot of ripples,\u201d Wyche said. \u201cMy most important thought was: Don\u2019t mess up the quality of the story and remember the journalistic principles of who, what, when, where and especially the why.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"FILE\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n

FILE\u00a0\u2014 Quarterback Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers looks on from the sidelines against the Green Bay Packers in the first half of their preseason football game at Levi\u2019s Stadium on Aug. 26, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif.<\/p>\n

Thearon W. Henderson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wyche filed the story, went to bed very late at night and woke up around 6 a.m. to see the story wasn\u2019t published. Instead, Pro Football Talk had a story up about Kaepernick not standing for the anthem, but wrote that it was \u201cunclear\u201d why, and that no one had talked to\u00a0Kaepernick about it after the game. Wyche was furious and started trying to find out what the holdup was, even teasing out his story before publication on social media<\/a>. (To this day, he doesn\u2019t know what caused the delay.)<\/p>\n

Once the story finally did publish<\/a>, he posted it on his social media<\/a> around 7 a.m. and it was what he called \u201ca wildfire right away.\u201d It\u00a0quickly became<\/a> one of the biggest stories in the country, if not the world \u2014\u00a0one that instantly became a national controversy<\/a> and is still reverberating to this day. From switching the protest to kneeling, to not playing in the NFL again after the season and accusations of<\/a> collusion and blackballing, Kaepernick has become a civil rights icon for the protest.<\/p>\n

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Wyche still covers the NFL, now shifted over under the ESPN umbrella as part of Disney\u2019s takeover of NFL Network. But even he knows there probably won\u2019t be another story like that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a million stories where I think I\u2019ve done a good job,\u201d Wyche said. \u201cBut I just think because of the impact, it\u2019s at the top of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every August, as the NFL season goes into the depths of its preseason, Steve Wyche thinks back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":981858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,6,1161,252,2624,2623,83967],"class_list":["post-981857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco-49ers","tag-49ers","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfrancisco49ers","tag-sfgsports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117150285191013187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/981858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}