Missouri Football Players On Strike
UPDATE
Tim Wolfe will no longer be president of the University of Missouri system. He announced his resignation this morning shortly after the Board of Curators meeting began.
Black members of the University of Missouri football team announced Saturday night that they would be boycotting football-related activities until the demands of Johnathan Butler and the Concerned Student 1950 group are met. Butler is a Mizzou graduate student who has been on a hunger strike for a week in an attempt to force the removal of University of Missouri system president Tim Wolfe from his position in response to recent racial events on campus. The team’s game scheduled for this Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City is in danger of being canceled if the boycott continues. The University of Missouri Board of Curators is scheduled to meet at 10 am Monday on the Columbia campus.
A group of students from the Concerned Student 1950 group staged a protest during Mizzou’s Homecoming parade back in October. The group stopped Wolfe’s car during the parade by blocking the street. The group wants Wolfe to apologize for his reaction to the protest in a letter that he should read at a press conference and “acknowledge his white male privilege”. They also claim that Wolfe’s car hit a protester during the protest. At around the 3:40 mark of the video you can see the car make contact with a protester, who may have initiated the contact. Here’s video of that protest.
Clay Travis called the protest and its demands “absurd”. Members of the school’s faculty have said that they will be holding a “teach-in” today at tomorrow in support of the student’s protest.
Mizzou head coach Gary Pinkel tweeted a photo Sunday morning of his team and coaches with the comment “The Mizzou Family stands as one. We are united. We are behind our players.” He included the hashtag “#ConcernedStudent1950” and his initials, which he uses on all tweets personally written by him. An unnamed football player, who is said to be white, was quoted by ESPN as saying “As much as we want to say everyone is united, half the team and coaches — black and white — are pissed.”
At least one former Mizzou athlete, basketball player Kim English, sent out a series of tweets on Saturday about the racial oppression he felt while at the University of Missouri. Former football player Wes Kemp was a guest on The Ryan Kelley Morning After radio show on CBS Sports Radio 920 where he spoke about his time at Mizzou, where he spoke about his time at Mizzou.
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