I can only begin to imagine the shitstorm that would entail from this:
What would happen if a star college football player, particularly at a high-profile school in the deep South, wore a Black Lives Matter shirt during warmups or used a postgame media session to talk about police brutality and racial profiling rather than the game?
What would the consequences be for the school? What kind of pressure would conservative white fans put on the coach to denounce it publicly? And in turn, what would the recruiting consequences be for the coach if he tried to silence or stifle a player bringing light to an issue?
If a coach tried to silence free speech by, say, revoking a scholarship, I think there would be more consequences than just on the recruiting front.
I guess we’re lucky college football players are still in the locker room during the playing of the national anthem.
Get The Picture 
Lord, this has “shitshow thread” written all over it.
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For real. I’m gonna go make some popcorn and clear my schedule.
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“Shitstorm”
It is hurricand season ya know
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Let’s speculate and stir it up.
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Free speech has consequences, ask the Dixie chicks.
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Well I can tell you from experience that players are prohibited or have been from wearing Christian T-shirts after games to talk to the press. I think BLM is a farce HOWEVER in this country they have the right to have a voice…the 1st Amendment.
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That’s big of you. So generous.
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When you have companies successfully firing employees who post opinions that differ from the company line, I imagine you can take some action against team members who do similar things, especially while in uniform.
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Not if the university is a public one.
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Lord I hope not. I have been looking forward to college football more this season than ever before as a relief from the non stop madness going on out there. If it gets politicized too I guess I’ll have to become one of the settlers from the direct TV commercials.
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You might as well ask what would happen if, say, Jacob Eason started wearing a Make America Great Again hat and started giving press conferences supporting the enforcement of immigration laws that have been on the books for decades. I’m sure every one would support his right to free speech, too. Especially on a college campus.
Maybe we can speculate next on what would have happened if Napoleon had air support at the battle of Waterloo.
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Well said
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Would those Trump supporters objecting to players expressing objection to athletes voicing opinions they disagree with likewise complain about players expressing political views?
The real complaint isn’t players expressing political views. The complaint is players expressing political views contrary to ours.
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Wouldn’t bother me if Eason did so. Mike Leach is an unabashed Trump supporter and that hasn’t changed my opinion of him one bit.
Then again, I remember growing up at a time when expressing a political opinion didn’t immediately make you an enemy of half the adult population.
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Last sentence is very true. But then most people, especially celebrities, understood how to maintain separation between their personal and private lives. It is sticking it in people’s faces that sparks more outrage than them having a different opinion from them. Dixie Chicks and SF QB brought their decline on themselves, same for high profile conservatives. The public doesn’t buy tickets, or tune in, to see a political commercial.
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Sorry, should have been “public and private lives” of course.
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I know YOU understand that. And I’ve never held your right wing views against you 😉 Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks on both sides of the aisle who don’t. Therein lies the predictable problem.
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You are using the term “adult” loosely.
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All I know is, I’d welcome with open arms a transgender 350-pound left tackle with a sub-5.0 time in the 40 and a knack for pancake blocks.
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Ricky Tidwell’s Momma?
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It would be cowardly because no one would argue with him. But, he has every right to do so and there should be no retaliation. Also, better then than while he’s passed out in a car at an intersection
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If UGA wants to prohibit players from wearing undershirts with political messages then it should prohibit a certain political party from handing out campaign stickers at games with the Georgia logo on the stickers or “Dawgs For Whomever” on them. By the way, if Pepsi Cola had employees handing out “Dawgs for Pepsi!!!!” stickers at the gates UGA’s trademark lawyers would assemble to write cease and desist letters before the coin toss even took place.
Anyway, folks get offended at the idea of athletes expressing opinions that folks disagree with but LOVE it when an athlete voices an opinion they agree with.
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If an athlete worse such a shirt or said such things at a public university, then unlike the NFL protests it might actually be protected by the First Amendment.
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I saw a bumper sticker this weekend with a message that we could probably get Sankey to endorse league wide: Police Lives Matter
It’s a message that I think is overdue in our society. Think about it. If a police officer is shot/killed in the line of duty what happens? Very little.
Often these situations get covered up so that no one is held responsible. On the rare occasions that the shooting is caught on tape, maybe the shooter gets suspended with pay pending an investigation. The shooter will have a union representative act on his behalf to tell the public that the shooting of the officer was legally justified.
If there are any criminal charges, and it’s rare, juries refuse to convict. It’s just a shame that as a society we don’t ensure that when a police officer is shot/killed that somebody is held accountable. Is the death penalty something we should consider in these cases? Perhaps it’s time to give that some thought.
In the meantime, I think that every SEC athlete should be required to wear a “Police Lives Matter” slogan during all competitions until we can all agree that we should treat police officers as equal members of the community.
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Trolling or perhaps just ignorant?8
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It isn’t a binary decision. 😉
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Embrace the power of ‘and’.
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It’s funny to hear people who raise PLM to silence BLM, talking about “binary decisions” and the power of “AND.”
How many people today think BLM is a farce because certain news media outlets of a political persuasion employ that same “binary decision” in their portrayals of a cause they have no interest in lending a voice too?
I don’t know if you are truly genuine about PLM or you are one of those screaming it just to deafen BLM; all the same, it can’t hurt to keep reinforcing that these are not indeed “binary decisions.”
Amen brother!
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uh, not sure where you’re coming from here, bruh. I didn’t raise PLM at all, much less to silence BLM. I would be in favor of silencing Derek, though.
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This can be your safe space, your porn, or perhaps both?
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Quit posting pictures of your girlfriend. Are you bragging or complaining? Either way, your feeble attempt at smack is…. Well…. B-a-a-a-a-d.
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I just thought that while we were discussing messages that I’d share one that recently inspired me. I’m sorry if you don’t like the message but Police Officer Lives do Matter. And they need a voice. Whether it’s me on a blog or a bumber sticker or a t-shirt somehow someway we must convince the public that police officer victims are like any other victims of violent crime and I for one won’t rest until its a message that resonates throughout America.
My other idea, and this may even be more controversial, is: Cancer Sucks.
I know it’s shocking to read the first time, but with time I think it’s a message that we can get people behind.
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I’m starting to like this new and thoughtful Derek.
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No kidding. I had to check three times to make sure it was indeed Derek and that the name was spelled the same. Nevertheless, I’m right with you brother.
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Don’t be fooled. He is playing you. This guy is alt-left trash. Re-read the comments:
“If a police officer is shot/killed in the line of duty what happens? Very little.
Often these situations get covered up so that no one is held responsible. On the rare occasions that the shooting is caught on tape, maybe the shooter gets suspended with pay pending an investigation. The shooter will have a union representative act on his behalf to tell the public that the shooting of the officer was legally justified.”
The shooter of a police officer suspended with pay and represented by a union?
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Should play back…..can’t imagine what it would be like without law enforcement (anarchy). They probably should just ignore the neighborhoods that do not want them, let them fend for themselves. I appreciate what they do, underpaid IYAM. “Blue Lives Matter”
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80% of my neighborhood has blue ribbons tied around their mailboxes, including us….”Blue Lives Matter”
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And good for them. Perhaps after the symbolism we can actually make progress on ensuring justice for those who harm police officers. Personally I’m tired of all the police shooters getting passes or slaps on the wrist. It’s terrible.
The point is that while it’s important to express the feeling it’s more important that we ensure that those thoughts are put into action. Otherwise, they are just empty words right?
Until the cries of the powerless in uniform are heard I say: No justice. No peace.
Whose with me?
Once we ensure that police office murders are punished adequately maybe we can get around to giving a shit about everybody and anybody who is inexcusably shot/killed. After all aren’t all lives supposed to be equal under the law?
Can we justify a system where any one group of citizens gets special treatment when they use deadly force? Today we deal with cop killers and tomorrow, well who knows what the possibilities may be?
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Woke af
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I like it.
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Local police having access to combat weapons including grenade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets is almost the most Republican thing I’ve done.
https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/902968427568144384
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Every major city should have 2 to 3 of these guys:
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That’s not the message that came through in your original post. Whatever point you made about appreciating police was buried under laughable assertions like ‘cop killers always get away with their crime’ and ‘the SEC should take up the cause’ and ‘force football players (the majority of whom come from the demographic most likely to suffer harm at the hands of police) to wear patches to celebrate the cause.’
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Who are you and what have you done with our Derek?
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Oh well.
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If a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass when he jumped.
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It would be easier to accept if I were convinced it was the player’s true feelings and not bought and paid for by some special interest or spurred by some media outlet like USA Today wanting even more division.
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Yeah it was totally USA Today and George Soros that put Kaepernick or the Mizzou football team up to their actions….totally.
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Dang Senator talk about sucking the air out of the upcoming football season!!! lol…Here we go again. But I am all for that Samoan transgender 6-5 330 pound defensive lineman I have been hearing about that has named Georgia in his top 53 colleges.
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Yup…shot storm
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That Mizzou thing worked out well. How many dorms have they had to close in the last couple years?
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That would be seven at last count.
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The fourth post on this thread by TnDawg nails it. This article is doing nothing but fanning the flames and this quote says all you need to read. “I was born in 1970, but it seems to feel a lot like the ’60s,” said Virginia Tech’s athletics director Whit Babcock, . .” How in hell could this guy have a clue what the 60’s felt like when he was still nothing but a tadpole in his dad’s scrotum?
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poppycock
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Ask Mizzou.
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Probably would be minimal if they all did it.
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I find the whole article to be a bit breathless about “What would happen!” It depends on the action and actors. If the action (protest etc.) caused the power (colleges) significant loss of revenue like in the Missouri case, then a counteraction to mitigate revenue loss would be generated based on decisional criteria that estimated the relative strengths of both parties. In the case of Missouri that decision is known and on a purely relative strength basis from my perspective was correct. If Nick Chubb decides to not play as a matter of protest then I think UGA lets him have his choice; there are few athletes that are by themselves important enough to a program to have the power to change the universities’ relative power compared to the individual players’. In real life individual protests don’t change too much by themselves. What will cause change is either slow changing of public perception due to multiple protests or overreaction by the actor with surfeit of power such that that power is attenuated due to loss of public trust. This loss of trust is happening across western culture currently whether by demonstrated incompetence that causes protest or the stated overreaction. This questioning of the elites can be expected to continue whether in the form of Kaepernick or Mizzou or BLM or Trump’s election until a new relatively stable superior/subordinate relationship can be developed. It will be interesting to see into what form this struggle evolves in college football. I do not comment very often but I do read GTP daily. I find the Senator’s chronicling of the power struggle between the elites (colleges/NCAA etc.), their governed (athletes) and the source of both’s power (fans) very entertaining. Hopefully the Dawgs will win a championship before the current system changes permanently!
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For me personally, if the student athlete were well informed, made cogent arguments and statements, eschewed inflammatory rhetoric, and suggested potential solutions, I’d have no issue.
If it were the type of thing we often hear from celebrities, newscasters, or athletes, with minimal facts, lots of incorrect info, inflammatory rhetoric, and “good cop is a dead cop” type of terminology, I would be outraged.
ultimately, it’d make one heck of a 1A lawsuit and spectacle should that student have their scholarship rescinded as a result of 1A protected speech as a student athlete at a public university.
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