Ubben: College football players have power, but they must decide how to use it

Oct 12, 2019; Knoxville, TN, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs running back Kylin Hill (8) runs the ball during the second half of a game against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bryan Lynn-USA TODAY Sports
By David Ubben
Jun 28, 2020

On June 22, Mississippi State running back Kylin Hill made it clear he would not suit up again for the Bulldogs unless the state flag was changed.

In the top left corner of the flag, the infamous stars and bars have flown over the state of Mississippi since 1894, the only one of 50 state flags that features the confederate battle flag.

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“Either change the flag or I won’t be representing this State anymore & I meant that,” Hill wrote on Twitter. “I’m tired.”

Four days earlier, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey had announced plans to pull any championship events from the state if the flag wasn’t changed. Granted, such occurrences in the conference have been rare, even if the gesture was well-intended.

The state’s biggest star in its favorite sport threatening to sit out is a new level of leverage. Three days later, a parade of coaches, including both from universities across the state, including both Lane Kiffin and Mike Leach, arrived at the state capitol building prepared to lobby.

Saturday, it became official after a vote: The state’s flag will change.

It was an undeniable show of power by players, the latest in a run of many.

Chuba Hubbard called out his coach’s ignorance at Oklahoma State, leading to Mike Gundy calling himself a “dumbass” for donning an OAN shirt and voicing public support of the network. Gundy promised changes moving forward and Thursday, the athletic department launched a Diversity and Inclusion Council. Iowa players called out a poisoned strength and conditioning culture, leading to a separation agreement between the Hawkeyes and Chris Doyle, who had led the strength and conditioning program since 1999 and was the sport’s highest-paid strength coach.

Texas players are seeking a handful of changes, like renaming buildings named after racists, naming a portion of the team facility after the program’s first Black player, donating 0.5% of the program’s annual revenue to “Black organizations and the BLM movement,” lifting a requirement for athletes to sing “The Eyes of Texas” and/or replacing it with a new song to sing on the field after games.

Players’ voices have never been louder. More people than ever are listening.

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As money has poured into college football programs since the Supreme Court’s decision in the NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma in 1984, players have long held the power many are suddenly wielding.

They’re just now realizing how much power they have.

The threat of no college football season due to the COVID-19 pandemic poses the accompanied possibility of economic ruin at institutions of higher education across America. And players, dealing with the fallout of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police on May 25, have opened their eyes to how deeply racism is baked into the foundation of America and their own campuses.

They’ve also gotten a glimpse of their ability to not have to grin and bear it, like so many before them did.

The examples of the past month are just the beginning. But with newly realized power, players also must recognize when, where and how to use it. The quickest way to surrender power is to misuse it.

Kansas State players have spent the last few days threatening a boycott of their own.

“Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” wrote Jaden McNeil, a Kansas State student with documented ties to white nationalists and the self-proclaimed founder and president of “America First Students,” a “Student Organization for strong borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values.”

I’m a Christian. I don’t see much of Christ or his values in a tweet like that.

“Mourn with those who mourn,” reads Romans 12:15.

It’s an obnoxious, reprehensible, unfunny joke that thumbs its nose at real pain in America.

A large chunk of Kansas State players announced plans to boycott football unless McNeil was expelled.

Athletic director Gene Taylor and head coach Chris Klieman issued statements of support but no promises to act on players’ desire for McNeil’s expulsion.

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Saturday, many posted a uniform statement on social media.

“To our family at Kansas State: Due to the recent disparaging, insensitive, and unsettling comments made by a fellow student, we as a football team, after consultation with students from campus organizations, as well as students from the general student body, feel it is best for us to stand with the students,” the graphic read.

“We are demanding that Kansas State University put a policy in place that allows a student to be dismissed for displaying openly racist, threatening or disrespectful action toward a student or groups of students. We have resolved that we cannot play, practice, or meet until these demands are heard and actions taken. We love Kansas State but we must stand together and protect all students moving forward.”

The frustration is understandable. If I showed up to class on the first day next fall and had McNeil sat down next to me or he was assigned to be my lab partner or I joined his team for a group project, I’d feel angry and unwelcome, too.

But the First Amendment is there for a reason. Publicly funded organizations can’t punish citizens for speech, save few exceptions. And players have put Kansas State in an impossible position of ignoring the demands of their most valuable students or ignoring the United States Constitution. Both scenarios end with the university losing in countless ways.

McNeil isn’t threatening his fellow students. Reinforcing bigoted ideas some sects of society still hold about Black men and women is hardly enough to be denied an education, no matter how much decision makers or players would like that to be the case.

The confederate flag was a symbol for treasonous men who believed in their right to oppress, enslave, rape, beat, humiliate, emasculate and denigrate human beings whose skin was not the same color as their own. They built their economy around that unpaid, tortured labor. Men who fought under it believed in that ideal enough to die for it.

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Today, 155 years after those efforts failed to create a new nation, the symbol for that movement flies atop the building responsible for creating and amending the laws that govern a state of almost 3 million people. More than a million of those citizens are black.

The confederate battle flag is a powerful symbol. Few in America more soundly deserve decimation.

McNeil? He’s a student with an organization and Twitter account few outside of his circle of influence had ever heard of before this weekend.

Hill used his power to punch up to the highest levels of his home state. Hopefully, he and his teammates will move on from powerful symbols and continue to use their power to dismantle systems that have stood in the way of a nation that tells us it pursues liberty and justice for all.

Kansas State’s players have used their power to amplify the voice and platform of a worldview that a majority of Americans already oppose. They have far more power than McNeil could dream of having. If McNeil decided tomorrow he wanted to change Kansas’ flag, he’d get nowhere.

If McNeil stays in school, he can dance on the failure of the campus’ most powerful students to have him removed. If he’s expelled, he can (justifiably) point to a violation of his First Amendment rights and play victim.

He’d become a misguided martyr in the growing drum beat of disingenuous voices who cry “censorship” of views that are built around white supremacy and disguised under a mislabeled tag of “conservatism.”

He’ll make money from this. He’ll gain notoriety from this. He’s already won. The outcome of his status as a student at Kansas State is irrelevant.

Every college athlete in America has seen what’s happened on campuses across the country. They’ll be able to exercise their power. But they’ll have to pick their battles and do so wisely.

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Using newfound power means trial and error in learning how to use it. Even if the cause is right, the use of a boycott or leveraging that power is not always necessary. Misusing that power is the quickest way to lose public support. That support demands that people more powerful than college football players listen. Misuse that power too many times and you lose it.

Power like the one players have should be saved for efforts to produce real, lasting change that impacts lives and builds America into a more perfect union and a nation consistently taking steps toward equality in policing, the criminal justice system, income, housing, education and anything else that’s long overdue for change.

Punch up. Change the systems of power that have worked against Black citizens since millions of us were brought here against our will four centuries ago.

And let trolls scream into the void while you do it.

(Photo of Kylin Hill: Bryan Lynn / USA Today)

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David Ubben

David Ubben is a senior writer for The Athletic covering college football. Prior to joining The Athletic, he covered college sports for ESPN, Fox Sports Southwest, The Oklahoman, Sports on Earth and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, as well as contributing to a number of other publications. Follow David on Twitter @davidubben