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Athletes from 10 schools expressed their discontent with the management of coronavirus in their universities, a technique that they said prioritizes cash over safety.
By Billy Witz
Thirteen Pac-12 football players on Sunday threatened to withdraw from next season, saying they would play until the systemic inequalities highlighted by the school’s tracking reaction to the coronavirus pandemic were corrected.
The players, who come from 10 schools and come with All-American applicants and honor roll applicants, said that betting on a touch game like football, the epidemic would be reckless because of what they described as insufficient transparency about fitness risks, a lack of safety in uniforms. . and the lack of sufficient implementation.
These gaps, they added, are emblematic of a formula in which actors have little room to deal with social, economic or racial inequalities and, they said, much more than the millions of dollars they make a contribution to generate is used to address social, economic or racial inequalities. Them.
“People who, if we’re going to play football, will prioritize cash over fitness and protection 10 times out of 10,” said Jaydon Grant, senior advocate for Oregon State, a graduate in the arts of virtual communication. an interview.
The announcement comes as the school football season is increasingly in doubt as the coronavirus bounces across the country, adding major league baseball infiltration, no more below what it was in March, when school sports and professional leagues in the United States began to close.
This has led many universities to keep academics off campus and some meetings, such as the Ivy League, to postpone fall sports at least in January. But the most sensitive schools of football’s lucrative food chain, which relies heavily on television revenues, are advancing. Four primary meetings, the southeast, the Big Ten, the Pac-12 and the Atlantic coast, basically reduced their schedules to convention games.
However, there is a demonstration of rejection as to whether universities recruit unpaid college athletes to keep millions of dollars in the coffers of sports departments, largely assuming the dangers associated with Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. Especially when there are no N.C.A.A.-wide criteria on the frequency of tests or other protocols, which some schools can simply resist because they would be expensive. (The N.C.A.A. made recommendations, but decisions were left to the universities themselves.)
The N.C.A.A. The Board of Governors, which includes many university rectors, will hold the sporting drop at its assembly on Tuesday.
While some athletes have expressed their apprehension for football during the pandemic, adding SEC players in a recent call with league officials, according to the Washington Post, and some have retired, Pac-12 players are the first collective effort to ask why players are taking so many risks.
Pac-12 players, who come with the protection of Oregon Jevon Holland, have thought of a first imaginable N.F.L. circular. draft selection and Washington supporter Joe Tryon, a pre-season All-American, are benefiting from the recent announcement of the conference that it will allow all academics to retain their sports scholarships if they retire. Players said the situations for their return involve not only greater fitness and protection protection protections, but also measures that would redistribute some of the millions of dollars that school football generates.
Players asked commissioner Larry Scott, who receives $5.3 million a year, and other coaches and directors to particularly reduce their salaries and finish the luxurious amenities. They also demanded greater health insurance coverage, six-year scholarships, the freedom to hire marketing agents and that 50% of the sports convention’s earnings be distributed lightly among athletes in their sport, as well as the percentage of professional sports league winnings with players. .
Scott turned down an interview request. A spokesman for the convention referred to the organization’s failure to contact The Pac-12 or its schools.
Updated August 20, 2020
Here’s what happens as the global game slowly comes to life:
At least one head coach was not satisfied with the player’s position. Washington state coach Nick Rolovich told fitness-disordered players that he was fine if they retired, but didn’t need them on the team if they spoke out in favor of #WeStandUnited, according to John Woods Jr., father of second-year receiver Kassidy. The forest.
In an interview Sunday night, John Woods Jr. said Rolovich had told his son, who had retired for fitness reasons, to leave his locker blank on Monday after also saying that he was also supporting the players in #WeStandUnited. The Washington state player to point out the statement, Dallas Hobbs, a junior defensive lineman, learned the same thing, the receiver’s father said.
The state of Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
“These are debates and topics that are talked about weekly in locker rooms across the country,” said Valentino Daltoso, a three-year-old senior rookie on the offensive line in California, where he recently graduated from law studies. “This is a new concept that emerges from the field on the left.”
Daltoso, one of Cal’s 3 players in the 13, said the concept took hold about a month ago in a Zoom call made by his teammates following protests against the murder through George Floyd police in Minneapolis. As the discussions unfolded, players around the Pac-12 and others, such as Ramogi Huma, the director of the National Association of University Players, which defends the rights of players, were contacted.
Players say there are many other Pac-12 members who express their concerns, and even dozens, adding that Penei Sewell, an offensive version of Oregon that is likely to be a first-round pick from next year’s draft, retwented a Twitter message Sunday with the hashtag. We’re not united.
Daltoso hopes that there will also be many actors in other meetings who feel the same way, pointing out the issues raised through SEC actors in their call to the convention with Commissioner Greg Sankey and the convention’s medical advisors.
When Mississippi supporter MoMo Sanogo wondered why schools bring students back to campus, according to The Post, an official said, “It’s one of the things where if students don’t return to campus, then the chances of having a football season are almost nil.” Another player questioned the long-term effects of the virus’s contraction.
“These SEC guys are the only ones in how they feel,” Daltoso said. “It’s smart for them to protect themselves. Our strength as players comes from our wisdom from the struggles of others.”
Grant, the Oregon State player and son of the former N.B.A. Player Brian Grant said his school had taken vital steps to do some player protection training, but he saw no way to play games where social estrangement would be impossible. A limited environment in a limited number of venues, a technique that turned out to have worked on the fledgling returns of basketball and professional football, would not be practical for groups of 120 players, and contrary to school sports.
And the expulsion of Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, with a coronavirus-related inflammation of the center is also frightening.
“Do you need to wait for something to take a stand for us or do you need to make sure there’s a formula in position that will keep us safe?” Grant said. “The formula has not been able to provide our security. That’s why we’re united.”
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