The “Hail Mary” started with a GroupMe DM. Clemson running back Darien Rencher sent it off Sunday night. Stanford defensive end Dylan Boles got it. Trevor Lawrence soon joined a FaceTime call. And for a long time, with college football season in the direction of collapse, they have convened the most star-studded Zoom meeting in the sport.
Justin Fields, Ohio State Quarterback? Present.
Alabama running Najee Harris backwards? Control.
Oregon lineman Penei Sewell? On board.
Oklahoma State returns Chuba Hubbard? Yep.
Dozens of players are gathering because they, like hundreds of college athletes who spoke at the weekend, want to play football in 2020.
And because Pac-12 and Big Ten players, who have made separate moves that demand stronger coronavirus protection and other benefits, also want to play football.
However, when they saw #WeWantToPlay on social media faster, they saw a tricky trend. They saw polarization and artificial conflict. “We felt the media and the fans were hitting the two movements against each other,” Boles told Yahoo Sports.
In reality, realized players, could combine the two moves into one. Hunter-Reynbacks, Michigan, who led the Big Ten movement, speaks individually with Rencher. And they found, Reynolds said, that ‘something [#WeWantToPlay advocates] said that was a similar message as what we said, just conveyed a little differently. ”
That the players, representing each Power 5 conference, gather via Zoom. Reynolds had drawn up a preliminary statement. As a group, they have refined it. “We need to make this clear and concise,” Boles said as they decided. They needed bullet points, “something we can throw at a graph and make it easy to distribute.”
In about 30 minutes, they settled on the bullets. They wanted to play. But they wanted universal COVID-19 protocols, and freedom for players to sign up, and guarantees of qualification. And most notably, they wanted a player union.
he tweeted later. “That was the whole time they wanted to give me.” “Data-reactid =” 38 “> Then they turned to Washington’s defensive lineman Washington Hobbs, who was on the Zoom. Hobbs, a talented graphic designer, pulled up Photoshop and got to work.” 20 minutes to go to save the world, ” he tweeted later. “That was all the time they wanted to give me.”
One minute after midnight ET hit Lawrence’s steering wheel.
The words were not made with the input of every Power 5 footballer. “This was not necessarily a statement that encompassed the feelings of all athletes,” Reynolds said. “It was more a statement that, if a player chooses to, he could support to support.” And many – footballers and others, from Power 5 conferences and elsewhere – have.
support them te. A union would shake university athletics to the core. But the players at Zoom, said Boles and Reynolds, were not hesitant to call anyone. “We wanted to make players feel powerful, and had the opportunity to use their voice,” Boles said. “It absolutely must happen.” And Reynolds: “I think everyone needed that, just to have representation.” Data-reactid = “44”> The National College Players Association support them te. A union would shake university athletics to the core. But the players at Zoom, Boles and Reynolds said, were not hesitant to call anyone. “We wanted to make players feel powerful, and had the opportunity to use their voice,” Boles said. “It absolutely must happen.” And Reynolds: ‘I think everyone felt this was necessary, just to have representation.
“And for me personally, that representation should extend across all sports and all divisions in university athletics,” Reynolds continued. “It’s not just Power 5 football, it has to be Group 5, Ivy League, the whole FCS, Division II, Division III; football, basketball, soccer, softball, track and field, etc. ”
Rencher described her statement
as a “Help Mary to hopefully win ‘the game’.” “data-reactid =” 46 “> What comes next, however, is unknown. Athletes do not yet have a formalized voice, no matter how loud they speak. Season remains on the edge. Power 5 athletic directors presumably held an emergency meeting Sunday. The players mobilized hours later. Boles resembled their organization to “assembl[ing] the pseudo-Avengers of college football at the last minute. ” Rencher described her statement as a “Help Mary to hopefully win ‘the game’.”As Rencher tweeted: “All on the same team with this!” “Data-reactid =” 47 “> What they cured without cure, however, was that externally-produced division, between two movements with similar goals. They” established unity, “Boles said. As Rencher tweeted: “All on the same team with this!”
And they clarified a misunderstanding. “There was such sentiment that when a player made statements about better procedures, better safety standards, he did not want to play,” Reynolds said. ‘Or if a player quits them he or she did not want to play. … As university athletes, we put in hours, we put years into honoring our craft in our sport. We all want to play. We just want to play it safe. ”
And they want a voice. “We just want to make sure players are taken into account,” Boles said. “Because every decision that has been made so far over the season, in each respective conference, did not matter very much [or] no player input. We wanted to change that. ”
Boles spoke to Yahoo Sports in the wee hours of Monday morning, following a headwind weekend. “The series of events that lasted for two hours was honestly pretty insane,” he said of Sunday night. ‘But it was great that it came through. Now we have all agreed that we can work together, to really create something that should have been done a long time ago. Now we finally have the power to really do it. ”
