Opinion: College football coaches scared to speak, stand with players in conversations on racism, police brutality
By Dan Wolken
The profession that sells leadership and toughness as if it were a TED Talk was largely silent on Friday.
The profession that relies on the talent of young African-American men to keep millions of dollars flowing to lavish athletics budgets and bloated salaries took a pass on the national conversation around racism, police brutality and unequal treatment before the law.
The profession that drones on and on about becoming a man and doing the hard things decided to sit this one out.
On a day where athletes across many sports were speaking out, just a few prominent college football coaches tackled this painful moment.
The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests that have brought us — again — to this miserable place as a country is apparently too hot for most coaches to handle. The pressure to take a public stand about how we need to change as a society, as a culture, was left to the young people, many of whom are grieving and scared. The guys making millions of dollars? They were mostly sending tweets about recruiting, as if the entire concept of George Floyd wasn’t something that was hitting home at that very moment with every black player they recruited and promised to fight for.
Where’s their fight now? Where’s the truth? It certainly wasn’t on social media, where hardly any head coaches even acknowledged that something was desperately wrong in America.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2020/05/29/college-football-coaches-silent-george-floyd-and-police-brutality/5287206002/
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