U.S. soccer star and outspoken Trump critic Megan Rapinoe, attributed her success to former NFL player Colin Kaepernick as she accepted the Glamour “Woman of the Year” award on Monday.

During her acceptance speech, the U.S. Soccer team co-captain insisted that she would not be in a position to accept such an award if it were not for Kaepernick’s 2016 protests during the national anthem.

The 2019 Women’s World Cup winner told the audience that she wanted to thank the person “I don’t feel like I would be here without,” HuffPost reported.

Rapinoe identified Kaepernick as “someone whose courage and bravery was so bright and so bold, a person filled with conviction, unafraid of the consequences because he knew it really wasn’t about playing it safe, it was about doing what was necessary and backing down to exactly nobody.

“So, while I’m enjoying all of this unprecedented, and frankly, a little bit uncomfortable attention,” Rapinoe concluded, “and personal success in large part due to my activism off the field, Colin Kaepernick is still effectively banned.”

Kaepernick, of course, unleashed a tidal wave of controversy throughout the sports world when he began protesting against the country at the beginning of the 2016 NFL season by taking a knee during the national anthem.

Kaepernick offered several reasons for his protests when he first started them. But the player couched his protests in animosity for the country. In his own words, Kaepernick said he could never stand in honor of America. He also said the U.S.A. was never a great nation.

In August of 2016, for instance, Kaepernick said, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

With that quote, it seems clear that Kaepernick does not respect the anthem or the U.S.A. And with her egregious praise of the NFL player, it appears that Rapinoe agrees with that, too.

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