In a string of tweets Friday night, Georgia Tech athletic director Todd Stansbury joined the call for justice for George Floyd, speaking through his prism as a sports administrator.
“In our nation, someone’s skin color should not & CANNOT determine what their life is worth. Let’s unite to do better,” Stansbury wrote, concluding his comments with the hashtag #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd.
Stansbury became one of the first in his position as an athletic director of a power-conference school to publicly address the death of Floyd, whose slaying at the hands of Minneapolis police has sparked national reaction in the form of protests, some violent. Stansbury was joined in his call for justice for Floyd by Tech football coach Geoff Collins, who issued his own tweet Friday with his reaction to Floyd's death.
While it would seem difficult for anyone to contest the content of his tweets, published before the protest took its most violent forms, Stansbury is not given to social commentary and is typically reserved. It casts in greater relief his decision to speak on a charged topic, particularly given that it was made without prompting for comment, according to an athletic department spokesman.
“There are student-athletes across the USA who can and will change the world, but are afraid to go out for a run bc of the inhumanity that might befall them due to the color of their skin,” Stansbury wrote. “I can’t think of anything more tragic, yet I can’t think of the right words to say to them.”
He continued, “My hope is that through the power of sport, we can do our part to unite and heal our country, while moving in a direction of positive change and justice for all Americans.”
The comments recalled the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the black man who was shot and killed Feb. 23 in a neighborhood near Brunswick by two white men who told authorities that they suspected him of burglaries and that he became violent when confronted. Arbery’s family said that he was jogging through the McMichaels’ neighborhood.
Stansbury’s final tweet included what he called his “greatest life lesson,” learned while on the Tech football team from coach Bill Curry and his teammates, that “in the huddle, someone’s background does not determine their worth.”
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