There’s no way to tell what sort of influence their voices and ideas ultimately will have. But, given the opportunity to take a stand on the matter of whether the coming season should be played, college football players have exercised their right to be heard, Georgia Tech players included.
With the apparently increasing possibility of the postponement of the season, Tech offensive linemen Jack DeFoor and Zach Quinney spoke Monday with passion and confidence about their desire to play this fall. And on the other side, Tech safety Tariq Carpenter and others took to social media to express health concerns about playing amid the coronavirus pandemic.
It would appear to be examples of a new era in college athletics, one in which athletes are becoming more forthright in speaking their mind rather than adhering to the party line of their teams and coaches.
“I think most people really do want to play, and we do have to respect the people that don’t, but I think we’re ready,” DeFoor said Monday via videoconference. “And I think the majority of us do want to play.”
Quinney was of similar mind.
“Well, personally, to me, the reason that I want it so bad and all of my teammates do is, it’s really the sport that we’ve grown to love our entire lives,” he said.
Their words followed extraordinary events Sunday, as some of the game’s more recognized players, such as Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, tweeted their desire to play this fall with the hashtag “#WeWantToPlay.” It was seen as an 11th-hour attempt to keep the season alive, following the Mid-American Conference becoming the first FBS league to cancel fall sports Saturday and a growing sense that the five power conferences may eventually do likewise. On Monday, the Mountain West Conference became the second.
It was perhaps the first time in the monthslong deliberation of whether to play the season during the coronavirus pandemic, and certainly the most public, that the players – the ones with the greatest personal investment in the season – injected themselves into a conversation that largely has transpired among university officials and league commissioners.
Via Twitter, Tech players such as quarterback Jordan Yates, safety Charlie Thomas and tight end Dylan Leonard shared their own desire to play this fall. Yates laid out his rationale in a series of three tweets, contending that players will be safer within the confines of the team.
“Right now, us college football players are probably in the safest environments possible during this pandemic,” Yates wrote.
DeFoor affirmed the line of thinking Monday.
“I feel like coach (Geoff) Collins and everybody have set up an environment that’s really safe for everybody,” he said. “(If) we go back, I’m sure guys aren’t going to be as safe. We’re immature kids at the end of the day. We’re made to be safe here. At home, we’re really not. That’s just my personal opinion.”
Quinney said that Yellow Jackets players have made those feelings clear to their coaches.
“We’ve had conversations,” Quinney said. “They know what we want, and they know the best route to take to get us there.”
Among those tweeting #WeWantToPlay was Quinney and DeFoor’s position coach, Brent Key.
“It’s a little bit of a hypothetical question to ask about how they would be and the safety that they would have away from here,” Key said. “But we’re very confident in the safe measures that we have here, that we’ve put in place for them to be able to make sure that, while they’re here, that they are in a safe position.”
Even as support grew online for the #WeWantToPlay tweets, Carpenter was among those on Twitter questioning the idea that playing football this fall is safe, joined by defensive linemen T.K. Chimedza and Antwan Owens. That followed players in the Pac-12 and Big Ten issuing demands and proposals for heightened safety protocols for COVID-19 and for players to respectfully be allowed to opt out of the season.
“It ain’t hard at all,” Carpenter wrote in a tweet posted Sunday evening. “Don’t understand what’s the rush of playing in a global pandemic. Trying to figure out why this country ain’t been shut down yet. Also, how is playing a contact sport safer for us.”
Considering that Tech has begun preseason practice – preparation to play games this fall – for Carpenter to make a public judgement on the wisdom of such games is bold. But it’s the sort of outspokenness that college athletics administrators and coaches, including Collins, have said that they want to foster among athletes.
“Coach Collins has made a point to allow our guys to have a voice and be able to speak up, whether it be about social matters that are going on in the world, whether it be about football and to speak their mind and have input,” Key said. “That’s something that doesn’t go on everywhere.”
