On Sunday, an organization of Pac-12 football players threatened to withdraw from next season unless their considerations about the festival, the COVID-19 pandemic and other racial and economic problems in school sports were resolved.
Players posted a list of applications on The Players’ Tribune’s online and social media page with the hashtag #WeAreUnited and sent a press release to reporters. The statement lists the names of thirteen Pac-12 players from 10 schools, adding Oregon star Jevon Holland, and provides one of each.
Arizona state offensive lineman Cody Shear told The Associated Press that players started logging in about a month ago and communicated through the GroupMe texting app. He said the number of players in the organization had more than 400, the most unlikely was to measure the point of commitment of each.
“We can’t do that,” said Shear, a third-year student from Eugene, Oregon, who was transferred from the Ducks to ASU this year. “To have so many players, we have a pretty clever concept that there are many children and school athletes at this convention who agree with some, if not something, that we ask for what the player demands. I can’t give you a number of players, however, there are a lot of players who send messages in this GroupMe constantly. It feels like the phone explodes every second”.
The public demands of Pac-12 players adhere to one of the athletes in school football. Players called coaches in Iowa, the state of Oklahoma and the state of Florida.
Players organized demonstrations, marches and rallies on campuses across the country to protest racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
Now, as college sports leaders strive to save a season threatened by the pandemic, more and more players are asking to be heard.
“We thought a football season in those situations would be reckless and reveal unnecessary risks to us,” the players said in their press release. “We will not play until there is a genuine replacement appropriate for us.”
The Pac-12 launched a revised football schedule on Friday for the upcoming season. College football expects interruptions related to COVID-19. The Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference also announced plans last week for truncated seasons.
The NCAA has issued rules for COVID-19 tests and other protection and fitness protocols to be used in schools, and Power Five meetings (Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, VAC, and SEC) are finalizing their own recommendations.
The Pac-12 also announced friday that 20 hours a week of mandatory team activities for football, adding strength education, meetings and unfilled workouts, will begin on Monday. Early football education for Pac-12 schools is scheduled to begin on August 17.
The states of Arizona and California, which are home to part of Pac-12 schools, have been affected by some of the most severe outbreaks of COVID-19 cases in the following month. California-Berkeley has announced that the fall semester will begin with all online courses. USC said most of its courses will be online for the next semester.
“Since the formula is ready to threaten our physical condition and protection amid the global pandemic, we’ll have to keep an eye on each other,” Jaydon Grant, a defensive part of the state of Oregon, said in a statement.
Pac-12 spokesman Andrew Walker sent requests for comments from the convention to a Saturday published.
“Neither the Conference nor the athletics departments of our university have been contacted through this organization on these issues,” Pac-12 said. “We, our student-athletes, use their voices and have normal communications with our students-athletes in many other grades on a variety of topics.”
The list of player requests is for COVID-19-related sound protections; Protect all school sports systems from elimination through budget cuts; racial injustice in college sports; and property rights and remuneration for university athletes.
“This is vital for me because I need young people exploited through PAC12 and the NCAA to have the right to earn cash for their families,” Holland said in the statement. “I need my teammates’ protection to be superior to the game they play. If we are treated as employees, we are paid as such.”
Details include:
– Health and protection criteria approved through players and implemented through a third party decided through players to fight COVID-19 and serious injuries, abuse and death.
– 50% of the revenue source of a game distributed lightly among athletes.
– Physician for six years after university.
– Reduced payment for Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott, coaches and administrators.
– 2% of the source of income for monetary assistance for low-income black academics and networking initiatives.
The players indexed were: Treyjohn Butler of Stanford; Jake Curhan, Joshua Drayden and Valentino Daltoso of California; Nick Ford of Utah; ELisha Guidry of UCLA; Malik Hausman of Arizona; Dallas Hobbs of Washington state; and Ty Jones and Joe Tryon of Washington.
Oregon offensive lineman Penei Sewell, who is expected to be one of the first players chosen in the next NFL draft, was one of the school players who voiced the motion on social media.
The organization said it pledged to form alliances with athletes from other matches and that some pac-12 outdoor players identified the movement.
“#WeAreUnited in our commitment to providing a fair remedy to college athletes,” he said. “Due to COVID-19 and other serious issues, we will withdraw from fall camp and participation in Pac-12 games, unless the following requests are guaranteed in writing through our convention to protect and gain benefits for either scholarship athletes and walkers.
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