College Football Players Have Found Their Voice. Coaches Beware.

Athletes who have been subject to strict social media policies from universities are now calling out racist behavior and holding their coaches and teammates to account

College football players are barely allowed by their coaches to publicly discuss the game they play, much less systemic racism in the U.S. But in the past two weeks, they have suddenly found their voice in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.

The same young men who’ve been subject to strict social media policies from universities are now calling out racist behavior and holding their coaches and teammates to account. And former players are surfacing allegations from their college playing days.

Candid tweets by players have forced an apology from a coach who exaggerated his outreach; gotten one assistant suspended; opened an investigation into the highest-paid strength and conditioning coach in the country; and caused at least one program-wide reckoning. And that’s just in the past week.

“Us players, just being who we are, we kind of stray away from posting things just because people like to interpret it and make it something that it’s probably not,” said Jamal Morris, a linebacker at Oklahoma who joined protests in Oklahoma City last month. “But this is not that situation.” He added: “I know I’m not the most famous college football player but I know my voice means something.”

It’s a remarkable shift for a sport in which athletes’ actions off the field and online have been micromanaged for decades. It comes against a backdrop of large-scale turmoil in college athletics due to the coronavirus, which paused NCAA sports in mid-March and sent athletes away from their campuses and coaches for weeks at a time. And it comes as the long debate about compensating collegiate athletes is coming to a head.

The combination of these forces could yield a much different gridiron experience come fall.

Nowhere has this dynamic been put on starker display than at Iowa. Coach Kirk Ferentz has spent 21 years building the program with pillars of discipline. He bans anyone on the roster from using Twitter, though they can use other forms of social media.

Then on June 5, former Iowa offensive lineman James Daniels, now with the Chicago Bears, shook up the discussion. “There are too many racial disparities in the Iowa football program,” he tweeted. “Black players have been treated unfairly for far too long.” Daniels went pro in 2017 after three seasons at Iowa.

More than 50 former Hawkeyes chimed in, describing the culture at Iowa as one of conformity that subjected black players to harsher scrutiny. Their allegations included taunts from coaches to “go back to the ghetto,” abusive behavior during conditioning sessions, more frequent random drug tests than white teammates and team-wide policies that disproportionately affected black athletes, such as a ban on cornrows.

Many of the complaints were leveled against strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle, who arrived in Iowa City with Ferentz 21 years ago and in 2019 was the highest-paid strength coach in the country with a salary of $800,200, according to USA Today. Doyle previously was named Iowa’s assistant coach of the year in 2011, the same year one of his workouts resulted in 13 players being hospitalized for rhabdomyolysis, a potentially life-threatening condition caused by the breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue.

Former defensive back Manny Rugamba alleged that Doyle openly mocked how black players spoke and told them he would “put them back on the streets.”

Jaleel Johnson, now a defensive tackle with the Minnesota Vikings, also singled out Ferentz’s son, offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz in a tweet. Johnson did not give specifics, though Sharonda Phelps told Iowa athletics blog Hawkeye Nation that Brian Ferentz asked her son if he was on his way to “rob a liquor store or bank” after seeing him in a team issued Nike cold weather face-mask.

Iowa officials announced Saturday that Doyle had been put on paid administrative leave pending an independent investigation. Brian, who reports to Barta due to nepotism laws, was not disciplined. That night, the exterior of Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City was spray-painted with profanities.

Amid criticism, Ferentz relaxed the team’s social media policy and granted current players one tweet per month subject to approval. In statements released via Twitter, white players expressed solidarity with their black teammates; black players highlighted the need to speak out against racism.

“If you can not support us right now with this movement and with our team taking a knee during the national anthem, DO NOT support us during the football season,” tweeted junior safety Kaevon Merriweather, raising the possibility of continued protests in the fall.

Kirk Ferentz held a news conference Sunday to address questions about his job security. “If [the former players] feel like I’m part of the problem or if they feel like we can’t move forward with me here, then I’d appreciate that feedback. That’s not what I’ve heard thus far,” he said.

Doyle also released a statement Sunday, in which he admitted that the university asked him to stay silent. He said, “At no time have I ever crossed the line of unethical behavior or bias based upon race. I do not make racist comments and I don’t tolerate people who do.”

Utah last week suspended defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley upon learning that he used a racial slur in a text message in 2013. Scalley, a 2019 finalist for the Broyles Award given to college football’s top assistant, reportedly used the slur when describing four recruits from Texas and said Friday “I made a terrible mistake.”

At Florida State, senior defensive tackle Marvin Wilson called out first-year coach Mike Norvell for exaggerating his outreach in the wake of Floyd’s death. Norvell told the Athletic that he had gone “back and forth individually with every player,” a claim Wilson described with the poop emoji on Twitter by explaining that every player received the same generic text message.

“We will not be working out until further notice,” he tweeted on June 4.

A team meeting was immediately called, Norvell admitted to bending facts via a public apology and Wilson and his teammates were back to voluntary workouts by the next morning. Wilson said in a video posted to Twitter that the meeting also produced a new agenda for the Seminoles beyond winning games: get every player registered to vote, raise funds for organizations that support black teenagers pursuing higher education, and volunteer in Tallahassee’s underserved schools.

“Shoutout to Colin Kaepernick for being the first athlete I ever saw really take a stand for something that he believed in,” said Wilson about why he spoke up. “Me being a man of color, I want to be that change.”

Uncomfortable conversations of race are playing out in locker rooms across the nation between players, the majority of whom are black, and their coaches, mostly white men who reap millions of dollars from the success of their unpaid athletes. Not everywhere have these discussions been as contentious as at Florida State.

At Eastern Michigan, coach Chris Creighton let senior Jeff Hubbard, who is black, take the reins in a team-wide Zoom discussion days after Floyd died. “The players started out by speaking and the coaches kind of just sat back and listened and soaked up as much information as possible,” said Hubbard.

The team produced a public service announcement-type video featuring Eastern Michigan players and coaches urging togetherness. Players agreed to gather weekly throughout the fall for discussions about current events led by a rotating cast of black players.

“I feel like this weekly meeting will do a great job of having guys get a better feeling of what their other teammates go through,” said Hubbard. “It’s hard to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes of the opposite race.”

Article via WSJ