Missouri Influences Change Beyond Campus
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Mark [email protected]
And there’s more change coming.
To make a long story short, there have been several racist incidents involving Missouri Student Association president Payton Head, an African-American, who was walking across campus “when some guys riding on the back of a pickup truck decided that it would be okay to continously scream N-- at me,” according to a Facebook entry quoted by NBCNews.com and other sources.
From there, the uproar grew steadily but quietly, and it appears as if the administration at the university pinned its hopes on the situation fading away. Instead, students began camping out in a well-travelled place on campus, and one graduate student began a hunger strike Nov. 2.
Then the football team got involved. Collectively, and with the support of head coach Gary Pinkel and the coaching staff, the players issued a statement they would not play Saturday’s game against Brigham Young in Kansas City unless university president Tim Wolfe stepped down.
The move would cost the Missouri athletic department more than $1 million, between contractual obligations and ticket refunds.
Wolfe stepped down yesterday. Whether he and other administrators did enough to address issues presented by the protest groups is another discussion for people who know more about the subject than I.
I commend the football team for protesting well. Instead of increasing the sense of unrest on campus, they increased the pressure where it seems to matter the most; the bank account. Job well done.
But with great power comes great responsibility.
College football players at the traditional power schools will use this kind of leverage again; it’s not a matter of if, but when. Athletic and college administrators will need to adjust accordingly.
Missouri Athletic Director Mack Rhoades said there is no playbook, no standard operating procedure, for handling situations like this.
It won’t be long before compensation for football and basketball players is brought to the forefront again. As players gain still more leverage, fewer and fewer things will be off limits to discussion.
The events in Columbia. Mo. will be a catalyst for further business-like discussions about how athletic programs spend the billions of dollars they collectively generate each year.
Student-athletes are in a position to effect social change on campuses as well.
With that, there will be plenty of opportunity to abuse the newly but not fully tested nor discovered power. We don’t yet know just how far this influence can reach, but right now that power seems only as limited as the income generated by, in effect, the players.
It’ll be interesting to see how the television networks, who dole out the checks that finance a huge portion of an athletic department’s income, continue to cover this story. Their seemingly insatiable need for content is feeding the money machine that big-time college athletics has become.
It’ll also be interesting to see if student-athletes at schools like Purdue and Kansas, who are not among the elite football schools, will have the same influence as their counterparts at places like Alabama, Notre Dame and Ohio State, to name only a few.
And will that influence go beyond football and men’s college basketball. Would anybody care if a baseball or softball team threatened to boycott a game?
The student-athletes will need to be very wise, probably beyond their years, in effecting change. But make no mistake, the times will be a-changin’. And sooner rather than later.[[In-content Ad]]
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And there’s more change coming.
To make a long story short, there have been several racist incidents involving Missouri Student Association president Payton Head, an African-American, who was walking across campus “when some guys riding on the back of a pickup truck decided that it would be okay to continously scream N-- at me,” according to a Facebook entry quoted by NBCNews.com and other sources.
From there, the uproar grew steadily but quietly, and it appears as if the administration at the university pinned its hopes on the situation fading away. Instead, students began camping out in a well-travelled place on campus, and one graduate student began a hunger strike Nov. 2.
Then the football team got involved. Collectively, and with the support of head coach Gary Pinkel and the coaching staff, the players issued a statement they would not play Saturday’s game against Brigham Young in Kansas City unless university president Tim Wolfe stepped down.
The move would cost the Missouri athletic department more than $1 million, between contractual obligations and ticket refunds.
Wolfe stepped down yesterday. Whether he and other administrators did enough to address issues presented by the protest groups is another discussion for people who know more about the subject than I.
I commend the football team for protesting well. Instead of increasing the sense of unrest on campus, they increased the pressure where it seems to matter the most; the bank account. Job well done.
But with great power comes great responsibility.
College football players at the traditional power schools will use this kind of leverage again; it’s not a matter of if, but when. Athletic and college administrators will need to adjust accordingly.
Missouri Athletic Director Mack Rhoades said there is no playbook, no standard operating procedure, for handling situations like this.
It won’t be long before compensation for football and basketball players is brought to the forefront again. As players gain still more leverage, fewer and fewer things will be off limits to discussion.
The events in Columbia. Mo. will be a catalyst for further business-like discussions about how athletic programs spend the billions of dollars they collectively generate each year.
Student-athletes are in a position to effect social change on campuses as well.
With that, there will be plenty of opportunity to abuse the newly but not fully tested nor discovered power. We don’t yet know just how far this influence can reach, but right now that power seems only as limited as the income generated by, in effect, the players.
It’ll be interesting to see how the television networks, who dole out the checks that finance a huge portion of an athletic department’s income, continue to cover this story. Their seemingly insatiable need for content is feeding the money machine that big-time college athletics has become.
It’ll also be interesting to see if student-athletes at schools like Purdue and Kansas, who are not among the elite football schools, will have the same influence as their counterparts at places like Alabama, Notre Dame and Ohio State, to name only a few.
And will that influence go beyond football and men’s college basketball. Would anybody care if a baseball or softball team threatened to boycott a game?
The student-athletes will need to be very wise, probably beyond their years, in effecting change. But make no mistake, the times will be a-changin’. And sooner rather than later.[[In-content Ad]]
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