Further background: He's African American. He himself is subject to racial abuse. He was a teammate of Bill Russell's (yes, dude is old). He claims that the racial abuse that he saw Bill Russell receive was the worst that he had ever seen in his life. He has remained in the game ever since.

His opinion - cutting and paraphrasing from my lengthy e-mail discussion over the past day or so.

• Claims that players can hear people heckle and abuse you. Cited his own experience and that of former player autobiographies.
• Believes Goodes would have suffered racial abuse throughout his entire career (no shit)
• Goodes would have known who had heckled him throughout his career. That these people would either be drunken fools or people who simply did not give a shit that their bigoted behavior was unbecoming and abusive.
• Understands and appreciates that Goodes takes great offense to being racially vilified.
• He wonders why Goodes decided to take action when it was a school girl rather than any number of the drunken idiots or adult racists who abused him on that occasion. Acknowledges that Goodes has the 'basic human right' to feel these things. However..
• He argues that it's very selective behavior indicative of an agenda.
• He questions the motives behind his response in this instance (without delving into recent events)
• Believes that the way Goodes has gone about it has backfired upon him and that it is the worst way of handling it that he has seen/read about
• Would recommend that Goodes reads one of Bill Russell's autobiographies that goes into great detail into the racism debate, how he was treated, how he responded to it, etc.
• Explained that Boston is one of the most racially abusive cities in the United States to play sports in (or was when he and Russell played) yet the way in which Russell responded to it not only improved race relations, particularly in professional sports but made him a subject of idolization among the Caucasian demographic in Boston (i.e. the same people who abused him became some of his greatest supporters).
• Closed by asking what Goode's end game was. What is he trying to achieve? He believes that those who are not booing him understand his plight and that the message is loud and clear. However, those who are booing Goodes are those who refuse to listen, are becoming increasingly infuriated with Goodes' behavior and are responding by booing him and refusing to listen (essentially the same as a small child putting their fingers into their ears and screaming "la la la") and that no matter how hard he tries or how good his intentions are that he will not sway their opinions but only further divide them.