Another Day, Another Zoom Meeting

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

America continued to deal today with protests due to the George Floyd murder at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis and the looting of some of our cities.

Though these two activities are associated, I would like to believe that they are basically being done by two distinct groups of people. The first seeking social justice and the second seeking illegal financial gain.

These are difficult times to say the least.

Yet another Zoom meeting

In the morning, our Coaches Exchanging group held its 24th Zoom meeting since we started them on April 1st in an effort to improve our knowledge of the game during the Coronavirus Lockdown.

Today Coach Rich Worsell of Akron University addressed us for a second time. His topic today was Analytics and Their Use in Practice Organization.

It was an interesting talk as usual.

From the net . . . 

Yes

I have been around athletics nearly all my life and have stood quietly, at attention for thousands of National Anthems. Most of the people around me do the same for the 90 seconds or so that it takes to sing it.

And then there are the others.

I've seen people standing for the Anthem but still talking on their cellphones or with someone near them at the time. I have noted people eating food and/or drinking beer during the 90 seconds. I find all of these actions disrespectful.

By chance in 2016, I attended the Los Angeles Rams home game vs. the San Francisco 49ers with Colin Kaepernick as the Niners starting QB. This was the season that Kaepernick was taking a knee and doing nothing else to draw attention to himself as a protest to questionable policing in minority communities. This use of symbolic speech as a form of peaceful protest is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

Our seats that day at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were behind the San Francisco bench. During the anthem, while Kaepernick took a knee as expected, people around me started shouting profanities at the top of their lungs aimed at Kaepernick's kneeling.

Who were the people disrespecting the flag on that day?

What if we'd addressed what he was protesting about four years ago instead of listening to the anti-flag, anti-military yarn that the far right used to combat Kaepernick?

Those of us who coach need to

remember this in all of our endeavors