Herd football take a knee to honor George Floyd
In light of recent events, the Marshall University football team participated in honoring George Floyd, a black man who was killed by police during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020.
This event sparked the attention of many people as protests, petitions, social media movements and more circulated across the United States and even reached other parts of the world.
Members of the Thundering Herd football team on Thursday decided to take a knee for eight minutes and forty-six seconds exactly at 8:46 p.m. at the Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington.
The eight minutes and forty-six seconds represents how long Floyd struggled to breathe while Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck, restraining him to the ground. Chauvin did not remove his knee and Floyd was found unconscious once paramedics arrived at the scene.
“You know, all us have been talking about the fact that, now more than ever, Black lives matter,” Marshall University President Jerome “Jerry” A. Gilbert said in an interview with Marshall Athletics. “Our players wanted to pay tribute to the memory of George Floyd. They decided to come out here and do a kneeling.”
Maurice R. Cooley, associate vice president of intercultural affairs, had previously met with the athletics department, football team and coaches to discuss the occasion.
“Actually, when we met on that occasion, we discovered that the Marshall football players had already expressed this as one of their forms, one of the things they wanted to do. We could see in the discussion that the coaches agreed,” Cooley said in an interview with Marshall Athletics.
Gilbert said that movements like this with the football team have a lot of support from the Marshall community.
“We are so proud of our players for wanting to express themselves in this way. It certainly reflects the sentiment of many people at Marshall, and a lot of us wanted to be here to witness and support them. It’s a great thing that they are doing,” Gilbert said.
Taylor Huddleston can be contacted at [email protected].
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Diane • Jun 15, 2020 at 12:49 pm
I do not support taking a knee or anything else for this man. Why are they “honoring” a criminal? I totally understand he should not have been killed the way he was. I understand these crooked cops should be punished and put in jail. But who in their right mind HONORS a criminal?? He was committing a crime when the cops were called for trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill. What are you thinking??? Is it just because he is black?? If so that is exactly what is causing all the racism. How many people do you know personally that has been given this much notoriety for doing good deeds? Or for just being white? Were they given a televised funeral and parade? I don’t know of anybody!! This is BS and it needs to be stopped!! If the protesters are going to take everything in history away then we also need to dissolve the fact that slavery ever existed. It can’t be one sided and both ways at the same time. Nobody living was ever around when slavery or confederacy was going on. Keep stirring racism and it will never get better or forgotten just from stuff like this. I’m ashamed of Marshall for allowing this to happen. Ashamed that the Marshall team would honor a criminal!! If that is the kind of school Marshall has become, then for our area I hope parents stand up and say NO to letting their children attend there. I do not support Black Lives Matter, All lives matter and we should not be promoting criminals of any race, color or nationality!!