NBA All-Star John Stockton made headlines after he revealed in a recent interview that his alma mater, Gonzaga University, suspended his basketball season tickets after he refused to comply with the school’s mask mandate for sporting events.
Masks aren’t Stockton’s only issue. The former Utah Jazz player has detailed his stance against COVID-19 vaccines and lockdowns for some time and appeared in a 2021 documentary called "Covid and the Vaccine: Truth, Lies and Misconceptions Revealed."
Now, he’s made a series of false claims about the pandemic in an interview with his hometown newspaper the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, and notably repeated a persistent myth about professional athletes abruptly dying from the vaccines.
"And I think it’s highly recorded now, there’s 150 I believe now — it’s over 100 professional athletes dead, professional athletes, the prime of their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right on the field, right on the court," Stockton told the newspaper on Jan. 23.
PolitiFact could not reach Stockton to ask him about his evidence. But we have debunked similar claims that said professional athletes were supposedly collapsing due to heart issues brought on by the COVID-19 vaccines, and while the narrative continues to be spread by critics of the pandemic like Stockton, there is still no credible evidence to support it.
Previous lists of athletes who purportedly died from the COVID-19 vaccines have included people who hadn...
Two men who allegedly made false claims that some preachers had caused their genitals to disappear have been arrested and are expected to be arraigned in court on Monday. The incident, which occur...