Episode 61: Yussuf Khan, Chris Kluwe, Johanna Mellis, Lou Moore & Aquasia Shaw

Yussuf Khan, founder of FirstandPen.com, leads a discussion on the current state of athlete activism at both the professional and collegiate levels. Joining him are Michigan State professor and author Lou Moore, former NFL player Chris Kluwe, Benedict College professor Aquasia Shaw, and Ursinus College professor Johanna Mellis. This discussion was recorded during the 2nd Annual Sports & Activism online symposium hosted by the Vanderbilt Sports & Society Initiative and the James Lawson Institute for Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at the Vanderbilt Divinity School on May 15, 2025. 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening,
depending where in the worldyou're joining us from today.
Thank you so much for being apart of this.
My name is Andrew Marinus, andI'm the Director of Special
Projects at the VanderbiltAthletic Department, where one
of those special projects is ourVanderbilt Sports and Society
Initiative.

(00:20):
And so today, this is our secondannual sports and activism
symposium, and sponsored by theSports and Society Initiative
and the James Lawson Institutefor the Research and Study of
Nonviolent Social Movements atthe Vanderbilt Divinity School.
It may seem like an unusualpairing to bring together
athletics and the DivinitySchool for something like this,

(00:44):
but when you think about thehistory of this university and
two of the most importantinstitutions alums of this
university, including one behindme, Reverend James Lawson, it
makes perfect sense.
So I see the Sports SocietyInitiative really as the living
legacy of Perry Wallace, who wasa pioneering basketball player

(01:07):
here at Vanderbilt in the late1960s, desegregated the
Southeastern Conference, andreally was a voice of reason and
truth throughout his entirelife, certainly during his time
here as an athlete, but alsountil the day that he died,
really telling the same truthabout the racism that he had

(01:27):
encountered here and just somuch wisdom on life in general
and really a courageous example,I think, of the profound impact
that sports and athletes canhave on institutions and
society.
An event like this alsocontinues the important work of
Reverend Lawson who was aVanderbilt Divinity student when

(01:48):
he led the lunch counter sit-inshere in Nashville in 1960 and
well into his 90s as Dr.
Shepard was such a closecolleague of him knows, was a
fearless truth teller and amoral conscience of the country
in many ways.
So we have truly an all-starlineup of hosts and panelists
with us today.
We'll have three differentpanels.

(02:11):
And I'll introduce our firsthost.
But before we get to that, I'dlike to introduce the first
all-star of the day, my friendand collaborator on this annual
project, Dr.
Phyllis Shepard, who is theexecutive director of the James
Lawson Institute.
Take it away, Phyllis.

SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you very much.
Thank you all for being here.
Yes, this is our second year,and I'm very excited about it.
And let me just say that part ofthat excitement is because This
is the fourth year of the JamesLawson Institute.
And each year we have tried tocome up with new and creative

(02:48):
and effective ways to bring themessage of nonviolent direct
action to a broader public,recognizing that we need to be
collaborative, we need partners,and now we consider all of you
partners.
So I'm hoping that as you listentoday that you hear this as an
initiative about preparing thenext generation and expanding

(03:13):
the knowledge of the currentgeneration of those involved in
nonviolent direct action tobring about justice and to
transform the society in whichwe live, which is what Reverend
Lawson constantly pressed uponus as we have been building this
Institute.
Thank you and welcome.

SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
Thank you, Dr.
Shepard.
All right, so we're ready tobegin our first panel on the
current state of athleteactivism.
Our host for the panel is myfriend Yusuf Khan, who is the
founding editor offirstandpen.com.
which their mission is toinform, inspire, and connect
through voices of color insports.

(03:53):
Yousef will introduce his fouramazing panelists.
So all of you who are a part ofthat panel, please unmute
yourselves and turn on yourcameras.
But Yousef, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_02 (04:06):
Excellent.
Well, thank you, Andrew.
And thank you, Dr.
Shepherd.
I really appreciate everyonecoming together and giving us
this opportunity to have thisvery important discussion.
So very, very excited to speakwith everybody.
So as Andrew mentioned, my nameis Yusuf Khan.
I'm CEO and founder of First inPen.
And we are dedicated to sportsstories through voices of color

(04:28):
and sports.
Very excited to host thissession.
And I'm going to jump right intoit and introduce our are four
panelists.
So we have Dr.
Quasia Shaw from BenedictCollege.
Dr.
Shaw has also written for us atFirst and Penn.
We have Professor Lou Moore, nowfrom Michigan State University,

(04:50):
who is also a contributor toFirst and Penn.
We have Chris Cluey, who isformer punter with the Minnesota
Vikings.
Excuse me.
And Dr.
Johanna Mellis from, and I knowI'm going to mispronounce this,
forgive me.
Is it Yersinus University?
Did I pronounce it right?

SPEAKER_05 (05:09):
It's Ursinus.
It's okay.
Ursinus.
No one can say it ever.

SPEAKER_02 (05:13):
Ursinus University.
So really excited to have thefour of you and have this
discussion on the athleteactivism in sports.
So I'll get started.
And Lou, I'd like to start withyou because I want to go from a
historical perspective.
And obviously, that's yourforte.

UNKNOWN (05:32):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (05:32):
I think everyone is fully aware and understand that
sports, society, politics,they've always had an intimate
relationship, even though manytimes people tried to deny it,
but they've always coexisted.
So, Lou, if you can just give usa little background on some of
the history as it relates toathlete activism in sports.

(05:54):
I know you've written many, manytimes on it, but I'd love to
give us, you know, our audiencea little bit of an intro into
it.

SPEAKER_03 (06:00):
Oh, gosh.
Jeez.
So it's like, where do youstart?
So I'll just start post-WorldWar II.
I think one of the guys I liketo point out all the time is Joe
Louis.
And people don't think about JoeLouis in that way.
He was the heavyweight championfrom 1937 to 1947.
And towards the end of hiscareer, he was like, look, my

(06:21):
biggest fight, the one I stillhave left, is against Jim Crow.
And he writes this great articlein Salute.
I don't know if he actuallywrote it, but his name's on it,
about fighting Jim Crow and hespent about a good two years in
the political space advocatingfor black people to register to
vote about the need to stop JimCrow and about the need to stop

(06:42):
the poll tax in the South.
So he's really like kicking offthis movement of athlete
activism.
Now he'll start to take a Istarted to go away a little bit
in politics as it gets a lot ofpushback from from others in
that space.
And also when Dewey loses in 48,I think he steps back.
But then you have JackieRobinson, who really steps into

(07:02):
that place in the late 1940s.
And for the next trying to dothe math, about 23 years until
he passed away in 1972, he'sconstantly talking about, you
know, ending Jim Crow, policebrutality, voting, registering
people to vote.
Going after now, Jackie'sRepublican, but he'll switch in

(07:23):
the mid-60s and really goingafter the Republican Party.
Obviously, there's Russell,there's Ali, there's Rose
Robinson, who's a Black woman inthe late 1950s who refused to
stand for the national anthem ata track event.
So this is what Howard Bryantcalls the heritage, right?
The people who set up that nextgeneration to get to, I'm sure,

(07:45):
what we'll get to today, thiskind of post-Trayvon Martin era.
I don't know how much time Ihave.
I could take the whole time, butI will be quiet now.

SPEAKER_02 (07:53):
No, that's perfect.
Thank you, Lou.
Other sports have now sort ofbeen open to this idea of

(08:16):
athlete activism and also socialissues, political issues coming
into that realm.
So talk to us a little bit aboutthe swimming community, how that
has now been subjected to thissort of scrutiny.
And also volleyball is anotherinteresting one, but I'd like
you to touch on swimming first.

SPEAKER_05 (08:35):
I was going to say, I am too uninformed about
volleyball to be able to speakintelligently to it.
Yeah, swimming is such aninteresting sport in terms of
the actual organized sport.
It is a historically whitesport.
I would very easily call it awhite supremacist sport in terms
of how it's been organizedhistorically and has sought to
exclude black and brown peoplearound the world in the US, but

(08:58):
obviously from Africa to Asia,everywhere, to prevent them from
competing in the sport.
And Kevin Dawson has an amazingbook that I always, that I teach
in class.
I always recommend that peopletalk about kind of how do we go
from like West African peoplesfrom being like the strongest
swimmers and canoers in theworld to like just being, you
know, the drowning rates beingmassive because of lynching and

(09:21):
things like that in the US.
But to kind of get to thepresent day, I mean, I would say
from like the mid 2015s onward,we started seeing more black
swimmers in particular beingmore successful in the sport.
Simone Manuel probably being themost well-known and there had
been several before so I'm notgoing to say she's the first but

(09:42):
and they started speaking aboutthe barriers that they faced in
terms of swimming and havinglike nobody in the swimming
world looking like like them andhow hard it's been for people to
take them seriously so andespecially around 2020 there was
a lot a fair bit of activismwithin the sport about let's
talk about these barriers andhow drowning impacts everybody
including the black communitybut also the brown and the white

(10:04):
community because of It's reallylike, even though limiting
access to pools has been aracist thing, primarily, it's
also been a classistsocioeconomic thing.
I would say in the last twoyears, if we're thinking about
activism and like not justprogressive left-wing activism,
but also fascist right-wingactivism, swimming has some of

(10:25):
the biggest names.
Riley Gaines is a huge name andsomeone that I feel like I need
to talk about as much aspossible because she's gone
after Leotard for several years,claiming that Leah Thomas took
an opportunity from her, eventhough they tied.
And if Leah Thomas hadn't beenswimming, she wouldn't have
gotten any better results.

(10:46):
But the fact that she's made itall the way up to the White
House and having basically statelegislation, I think in Georgia,
basically kind of being centeredaround her has been really
horrifying.
And the sport has beenrelatively silent.
There have been a few kind ofstatements that have been
released from NCAA's swimmers inparticular that have tried to

(11:07):
fight this.
But by and large, the sport'sbeen super, super quiet, even as
people like Katie Ledecky havereally, like, really, their
careers have just continued toblossom and they continue to be
very successful.
And the white female swimmingworld has gotten more and more,
like, notoriety and sort ofattention in the media.

(11:27):
But they've been so silent andcomplicit in this, like, real
fascist anti-trans lens.
So, like, Lou, I could keeptalking but I will stop there
and let other people share theirinsights, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 (11:38):
No, that's perfect.
And I'm glad you touched on thepro side, because that'll bring
me to Chris to talk aboutprofessional sports.
Obviously, Chris, you know, youwere a kicker, a punter, excuse
me, for the Minnesota Vikingsfor many, many years.
And on the NFL side andprofessional athlete side,
right, there's always thatbalance of how do you, you know,
maintain your sort of athleticfocus, but you want to speak out

(12:02):
on social issues as well thataffect you, your family, your
friends, etc.
And obviously, you have a verypersonal case.
connection to that opportunityto talk out.
So I'd love to talk a little bitabout your experience while you
were playing and then also inthe recent, you know, just
within the last six to eightmonths, what's been happening.

SPEAKER_04 (12:22):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, and thank you so much to
the other speakers, you know,kind of for bringing up the
history of like sports activism,because I went to UCLA.
So obviously, Jackie Robinson,Kenny Washington, like big, big
parts of, you know, just mebeing a student at UCLA is like,
that's part of the school'slegacy.
And as a professional athlete,you spend a lot of time on your
sport, right?

(12:42):
And people have this conceptionthat like, oh, you can only be
your sport, right?
Like, that's what you're knownfor.
But I've always looked at it as,yeah, I happen to be really good
at sports.
But I'm also a huge nerd.
Like I love video games.
I love reading.
I love doing all these otherthings.
And as a human being, I shouldcare about the society that I
live in because if it affords methe chance to be the best person

(13:05):
that I can be, well, everyoneelse should have that same
opportunity.
And we see very clearly thatthat's not the case.
And from a competitivestandpoint, I want to know that
when I go out on the field and Ikick your ass, I kicked your ass
at your 100% that you didn'thave to run the race with me.
with, you know, a hundred poundweight tied to your leg.
Cause then I didn't really beatyou.

(13:25):
And as a straight white guy,right?
Like I'm on easy mode.
There are a lot of people whodon't have my privilege that
don't have my advantages.
And personally, I don't thinkthat's fair.
And so when it comes to speakingout in sports, and when I spoke
out for the Vikings, I wasapproached by a group of
Missions for marriage equalitythat asked me to speak out for
LGBTQ rights.
And when I looked at what theywere asking me to do, which was
to oppose an amendment thatwould have banned, that would

(13:47):
have banned same-sex marriage inthe state of Minnesota.
I was like, well, you know what?
someone to speak out for me if iwas the one in trouble and i'm
in the position of power herelike i have the platform to
speak out on this if i expectthis from other people i have to
be willing to do it myself likebecause otherwise it just it
doesn't make sense like societydoesn't work if that's if that's

(14:08):
the case and so that that's kindof been the driving force behind
me speaking out is like whatwould I want if I was on the
other side of this equation?
And if it's, I would wantsomeone to speak out, well, then
I got to be the one to do it.
And so people probably know memost recently for being the guy
getting arrested and dragged outof the city council chambers
because they wanted to put aMAGA plaque on our public

(14:30):
library.
And this was back in February.
And at the time, you know, thisis Trump's first, you know, two
months in office and we'reseeing all the terrible stuff
that his administration isdoing.
And I'm like, where are mydemocratic elected officials?
Like where, Where is the partyof John Lewis?
Where is the party of goodtrouble?
Like, why isn't anyone doinganything?
And then I was like, well, if Iexpect them to do it, I got to

(14:51):
be willing to do the same.
And so, yeah, I decided to, youknow, peacefully, civilly
disobey and, you know, again,just carry on that proud
tradition that it's not justathletes that have done it.
It's been plenty of people thathave done it.
You know, Reverend Martin LutherKing, Malcolm X, the suffragette
movement.
Like there's, America has along, long history of people

(15:12):
peaceful civil disobedience.
And as athletes, we can bring alot of prominence to that role
because people do pay attentionto what we say.
We just have to have the courageto say

SPEAKER_02 (15:21):
it.
Right.
Excellent.
And I'm going to come to Equasianow.
Equasia, obviously you'vewritten about this, and I think
everyone here has had somepersonal experiences with
different issues that haveaffected us.
You coming from University ofTexas, right?
DEI department, professor there,and we've seen a lot of things

(15:42):
go down with Texas.
So I'd love to hear yourperspective, not only personally
as it relates to University ofTexas, but just the general idea
of of what you experienced in abig, big time sports school?

SPEAKER_06 (15:57):
Yeah, so it's always interesting when we hear these
conversations, especially withhow far UT actually got this
year in a college footballplayoffs and thinking about what
that meant.
And so I had actually wrote anarticle that talked about the
way that recruiting had justkind of recovered after they

(16:18):
fired, what, 75 odd people fromtheir institution.
And it has been noted that a lotof these individuals, they were
from marginalized populations.
It was people of color and werewomen, and they weren't all
directly related to this kind ofDEI concept following this
anti-DEI framework and policythat they were so heavily trying
to implement.

(16:38):
And so this idea that whosevoice really wants to be heard
and whose voice are we goingto...
accept, right?
Whose activism, whose level ofresistance is going to be more
palatable and who's going to bedisciplined.
And so we see kind of thiserasure of black and brown
individuals and women and otherdisadvantaged populations being

(17:00):
removed from the institution.
But then two weeks later, wehave this big spectacle of
welcoming these black athletesfrom all over the world to come
play for, you know, the greatestfootball program in the country.
And there's no conversationabout what you just did and what
kind of institution, what kindof environment they're about to
walk into if they do commit tothis kind of university.

(17:22):
And so it's this idea of kind ofperformative acts, what we are
gonna do to kind of recruit you,recruit your blackness, recruit
the culture and the things thatwe want here.
And then we wanna kind ofembrace that from the rest.
of your campus experience, therest of what it is to be
University of Texas and otherbig sports schools like that.

(17:43):
We see examples of that, likeNotre Dame, they used to do
their kind of like theirhighlight reels of, and they
always used to have like thisreally like ethnic, some people
refer to it ghetto music in thebackground, right?
They're playing hip hop and allthese kinds of things.
you're appealing to a certaingroup of people.
You're saying like, you're goodenough because we want you to
come play here.

(18:04):
We want you to come perform forus.
We want you to come and do usthis service, but we don't
accept any other part of you.
And so when we think about that,when we think about activism,
we're thinking about who reallyhas the right, who really has
the privileged to be able toexercise those rights to stand
up and to say things and to kindof put themselves in those

(18:25):
spaces to resist against, youknow, dominant ideology.
And I'll talk a little bit moreabout those types of individuals
too, who might be a little bitmore or less allowed to speak
more freely about things thatthey're experiencing.

SPEAKER_02 (18:41):
And I'm glad you said that, because when it comes
to speaking freely, you know, Ithink a lot of athletes are very
hesitant to do that.
Right.
I mean, you can go back toMichael Jordan.
Republicans buy sneakers, too.
Right.
So they don't want to sort ofdilute any possible revenue
stream or offend anybody.
But on the college side andequation, I'm going to stay with
you for a minute on the collegeside ever since 2021.

(19:05):
when NIL was first introduced.
We have seen this, what was verystrong at one time, athlete
activism has really dissipatedand really faded on college
campuses.
Many of the protests and thefights and the struggles have
now been authored by thestudents as opposed to the
athletes.
And I think much of it isbecause of the NIL introduction

(19:29):
and legality of it becausethere's a lot of money at stake.
You know, from your experience,obviously you were at Texas and
you're around athletes a lot.
You know, do you feel like NILhas in some way silenced athlete
activism at the college level?

SPEAKER_06 (19:45):
Oh, absolutely.
We actually just started, I justedited a NIL textbook.
So that is coming soon,shameless plug.
Or just talking about kind ofthe landscape and the changing
of college athletics right nowwith the implementation of NIL
and what that does to not onlycollege athletics, but the
actual athletes themselves.
Some of my students, they werebringing in million dollar NIL

(20:08):
deals.
They were driving Lamborghinisand Porsches and all kinds of
stuff to class.
And that was the normal.
When you're at an institutionthat large and that, successful
it was easy to kind of see theamount of money you could make
even if you were one of thoseathletes who weren't bringing in
those kinds of deals it was kindof the idea of that could be me
and so thinking about kind ofthe backlash even earlier in

(20:31):
2020 with the george floyd andthe black lives matter movement
um There were athletes atUniversity of Texas specifically
on the football team too, whostood up, tried to stand their
ground and said, we're not gonnarecruit for you anymore.
We're not gonna play for youanymore.
If we keep with our racistschool song, we keep with the

(20:51):
statutes that we have on campus.
They were kind of pointing outall of these things and they saw
what the negative consequencescould be.
And that was even before NIL.
So a lot of people are saying,you know, these students are
being apathetic or they're notreally down for the cause and
things of that nature.
But I think it's allpreservation.
I think at this point, they'rekind of like, I don't want to be
retaliated against.

(21:11):
I don't want to have to sufferconsequences.
And so they're doing the bestthat they can to protect
themselves because they want tomake sure that they can make
that money.
They can make those deals.
They can stay on these teams andthey can stay relevant.
They don't want to make thewrong person angry or upset or
make the wrong enemy that isgoing to affect their
livelihood.
And so when we're talking abouthundreds of thousands and

(21:33):
millions of dollars, that's alot more of a different
conversation than, you know, anhourly job.
And so I think that is a hugebarrier.
And it's one of the reasons whya lot of athletes choose to kind
of just turn the other cheek orstate of themselves when it
comes to certain issues that arehappening around them.

SPEAKER_02 (21:50):
Right.
And Johanna, if we continue onthe college athletics side, as
we know, football is the biggestdriver of revenue in many cases,
in many athletic departments,particularly Texas, where
equation used to be that helpsfund the rest of the sports
programs that are out there formany of the quote unquote, you
know, non-revenue drivingsports, you know, when it comes

(22:11):
to those other sports, many ofthem are now subjected to
fights.
They're going to have to fightwhen it comes to title nine, for
example, because some of theseprograms might get cut,
particularly on the women'sside, you know, obviously you're
a swimmer and, um, That's asport that in many cases doesn't
get a lot of publicity ascompared to football and
basketball and things like that.

(22:32):
But where do you think some ofthe athletes in the
non-football, non-basketballworld, how can they express
themselves in this activismlight, but still maintain their
athletic eligibility and not beshunned and things of that
nature?

UNKNOWN (22:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (22:54):
This is a tough question.
It reminds me of somediscussions I had with students
this semester.
So I'm at a Division III school.
We only have 1,500 students on agood enrollment year.
We're struggling for enrollmentcurrently.
But about 42% of our studentsare athletes, right?
So Division III schools,athletics is like a huge part of
our culture.
And so a lot of students werevery concerned about NIL and the

(23:19):
transfer portal and how thatmight eventually impact Division
III.
And I promise I'll go back toyour question a second.
But we talked about sort of howmost of them are playing sports
that are considered to benon-revenue generating.
And so a lot of them were like,oh, I'm very grateful I can
play.
And that was kind of therhetoric.
And I think there are probablymany ways to think of this idea

(23:41):
of being made to feel grateful.
I think football and basketballplayers are made to feel that
similarly, but for differentreasons.
And I think a lot of these, asyou said, quote unquote,
non-revenue generating sports,it's this idea and women's
sports in particular, that likeyou should just be thankful to
be able to have a spot on theteam and you should be even
thankful that your school has ateam.
And what was really interestingis some of these athletes, both

(24:05):
men and women, and I'm not goingto name which sports, but like
in these non-review generatingsports, we're saying like, I'm
tired of being made to feelgrateful.
I'm tired of being made to feellike I should be advocating for
the existence of this sport.
And I said, all right, we'regoing to talk about the creation
of markets.
Like why were these specificsports deemed to be ones that

(24:25):
needed to have a marketeventually created around them
and the development of like uhthe perception of racialized
labor and gendered labor and allthese things and a lot of them
felt like there was very littlethey could do and obviously
division three is very differentfrom division one but in terms
of your question about findingspace to advocate for themselves
i think a lot of them see themas being in competition with

(24:48):
athletes and revenue generatingsports and that's just a sense i
get i i have to say i'm not likefamiliar with the literature.
I'm sure that people are doingreally interesting research
about this.
And I'd be very curious to hearwhat athletes within the
athletes.org, kind of one of theunofficial kind of college
athlete-like player unionsthat's forming, kind of what

(25:09):
they hear from athletes in someof these non-revenue generating
sports.
But I think a lot of them feelthat these athletes and revenue
generating sports are quoteunquote greedy.
And so there were a lot ofstudents who were saying like, I
think athletes are just beinggreedy.
And I was like, hold on likethese athletes that are getting
these big deals they're not theproblem like we're sort of
misdirecting I think our ourfrustration rather at this

(25:32):
instead of looking at the systembut as these athletes who are
quote-unquote greedy and howespecially with this house
settlement deal that um due tothis house settlement deal there
are going to be these rosterlimits and these roster limits
are going to be taking spotsaway from us and I know the
roster limit question is stillvery much in flux and I actually
meant to look it up for today Ithink there were some things
that about a few weeks ago thatI'm not super up to date on but

(25:53):
I think part of it is they seethemselves as a competition with
one another.
And so I kept telling them,like, literally, this is the
divide and conquer rule thatlike colonizers have used for
centuries to try to keep peoplefrom uniting with one another.
So I think there's space.
And I kept telling them there'sspace for you all to actually
see your interests as beingunited.
And you all may experiencethings very differently, but

(26:14):
these causes all come from thesame source.
So I think that's where there'ssome space for them to advocate
with and for each other, ratherthan saying like, oh, I'm in a
non-revenue generating sport.
And these other sports arebecause that because these other
athletes are greedy, they'retaking like spots away from us.
And it's like, like, I thinkthat's such a like, capitalist

(26:34):
kind of imperialist competitiveperspective.
So I think that's kind of wheremaybe like there could be some
space for activism.

SPEAKER_02 (26:42):
Now, Chris, I'm going to come to you and then
Lou, I'm going to come to you.
So if we look at a little bit ofhistory, Chris, obviously you
were a pro athlete, you playedat UCLA, big division one
school, but when you wereplaying, there was no NIL,
right?
You had to be very aware of, youcouldn't have a summer job, you
couldn't earn income, right?
Different sorts of restrictionsthat you had, you know, but now

(27:03):
you look at it, collegeathletics is huge, huge, huge
money.
It's operated almost like a prosystem.
In many ways, it is a prosystem.
Now, you know, do you think Ithink that with NIL and a lot of
the other, you know,compensation things they were
talking about, Johanna justmentioned about the house versus
NCAA settlement.
You know, when you look back atit, you see UCLA now becoming a

(27:24):
member of the big team, there'stravel and all these things.
Do you think athletes, collegeathletes can actually have a
voice?
in dictating some of the trendsor some of the practices or just
any sort of demands in this bigmoney environment that we live
in?
Or do you think that it's morelike they're just going to be

(27:46):
quiet because they're making somuch money and this is just the
way it has to be because it's abusiness?

SPEAKER_04 (27:52):
Yeah, no.
So it's a really interestingquestion.
And I think kind of riffing offwhat Joanna was saying is that
this is ultimately at its core,the basic question of management
versus labor, right?
Like we have the people who arerunning the NCAA, the big
donors, like most of them tendto be rich white men, right?
Who are generally the samepeople who run NFL teams, who

(28:13):
are generally the same peoplewho own baseball teams, right?
Like these are all the samepeople with all the money.
And then The athletes are thelabor.
We're the ones who show up.
We're the ones who actually gothrough the punishment that we
put our bodies through.
And yeah, we get compensated forit.
But at the end of the day, we'renot getting equity stakes in
teams.
That's very, very rare for anathlete to actually have equity

(28:37):
in a team.
I think probably Patrick Mahomesand maybe Peyton Manning are the
only ones I can currently thinkof.
And that's because they madehundreds of millions of dollars
playing as a quarterback.
So I think from an athleteperspective, unionizing would be
a really good idea like and noteven just by sport like we
should have a trade union forcollege athletes like because

(28:58):
then that way you cancollectively bargain you can
assert your power as a laborerand honestly from my perspective
I don't even want to seesomething like NIL I want to see
college athletics treated as anactual job because I think this
idea of being a scholar athletemight have worked in the past
when the time demands weren't asas onerous as they are now, but

(29:21):
to be a college athlete in thisday and age means you are
dedicating at least four to sixhours per day to your sport,
right?
And then you're expected tocarry a college load on top of
that.
And then you have to find timeto actually be a college student
on top of that.
And it's frankly, it'sunrealistic to expect that to be
the case.
And so what we should be doingis saying, you are a college

(29:42):
athlete, you are an employee ofthis college.
We give you healthcare, we giveyou a salary.
And then if you want to keep thescholarship idea, once you are
done playing your sport, you canthen come back and we will pay
for your schooling for fouryears or five years or whatever
it happens to be.
Because then for the guys who orfor the people who are going to
go on and do their sportprofessionally, most of them

(30:04):
generally don't want to comeback for schooling, right?
They want to focus on theirsport and that's fine.
They should be allowed to dothat.
But for the other 99% of peoplewho are never going to do their
sport at a professional level,they can now actually enjoy
their school experience, get theeducation that they want and get
something beneficial out oftheir college experience, as

(30:25):
opposed to being like, well,crap, how am I going to juggle
this, you know, four to sixhours today, sometimes even more
depending on sport versusgetting a and these in my
classes versus hanging out withmy friends versus in some other
cases taking care of my familyright like working a job paying
for my education so yeah i thinka lot of this as i said earlier
comes down to the idea ofmanagement versus labor athletes

(30:48):
do need to unionize they need toassert collective bargaining
power and as a society we needto take a step back and look at
is the scholar athlete model onethat's even feasible in this day
and age

SPEAKER_02 (31:00):
Lou, so we're going to go back now since you're a
historian, right?
We'll take it back a little bit.
We have names like theO'Bannons, right?
Ed O'Bannon and UCLA Chris,right?
Your alma mater.
We had the Northwestern footballteam.
We had 2015 Missouri footballteam.
We had 1992 UNC football team.
These are all examples ofathletes and teams and players

(31:24):
and coaches, in Missouri's case,coming together to stand against
a certain issue.
In most of the cases, it'sracism.
Missouri threatened to boycott agame because the administration
hadn't taken the racismseriously, that the students
were protesting.
The football players and thecoaches actually stood together

(31:45):
and they said, we'll sit out agame.
And then they realized, oh,shoot, that'll cost us about a
million dollars if you forfeit agame.
Let us try to address it.
And it actually worked becausethe president ended up resigning
and changes were come.
So I preface that by sayingthat, excuse me, I preface this
by saying that, and I think it'simportant for people to

(32:06):
understand that they don't,these athletes nowadays don't
get taught those examples,right?
And I think that's part of theproblem is that because they
don't know that it has worked inthe past, that it could work
now.
So, Lou, if you could talk alittle bit about the past and
some of these examples and howwe can maybe educate current
athletes to say, listen, thereare benchmarks.

(32:27):
There is precedent.
Right.
And how do we do thateffectively so we don't mess up
their futures?
But we're actually trying tostrengthen their futures by
showing them the past.

SPEAKER_03 (32:36):
Yeah, no, that's a good point.
And I think one of the thingsyou point out is that there are
limited amounts of these thingshappening, right?
So when you go back to the late60s, I think there's no more
than 40 incidents on thesecollege campuses.
You know, some of them have,there's documentaries like the
Wyoming 14 or the Syracuse 8,but these are very limited.

(32:57):
And part of it, I think ittouches on what the others have
spoken about is that the NCAAand colleges have a lot of
power.
And so once you went from, Ithink you go from four-year
guarantee to 1973.
It's like this one-yearrenewable.
You don't have scholarships.
You don't have a lot of thishappening.
So that's why sometimes youmentioned like Missouri 2015 is
so big because it was everybodyinvolved, right?

(33:20):
So if we go back to the 60s, Isay, well, every black athlete
was going to protest.
Wyoming had 14.
Syracuse had eight.
Missouri, I think there was morethan 50 of those guys, right?
So the amount of of power thatthey have kind of increased.
But what happened is that theydidn't use it, right?
And they didn't use it for verygood reasons.
They don't want to get kickedout of school.

(33:41):
Or now it's, I don't want to usethe NILs.
But I think you're right in thesense that once we start telling
athletes the power that theyhave and then showing them how
it actually has worked, whetherit's Northwestern or Missouri,
that becomes dangerous for theinstitutions.
I remember being on a collegecampus right after the Missouri

(34:03):
incident.
So a year and a half later, andI was talking to an AD, and I
won't say what college campus,Vanderbilt, but I asked about it
and He's no longer with us, buthe was saying like, yeah, I
think a lot of ADs were worried,right?
Because at that time you hadn'tseen anything like that, right?

(34:25):
We'd always talked about, oh,the Fab Five should do something
or these athletes should dosomething, but you've never seen
it.
And I think...
ADs and colleges knew right awaythe power that these kids
actually wielded.
Like, you imagine if they didthat before the championship
game, whether it's basketball orfootball, how it would shut

(34:45):
things down.
So to get away from that, youdon't teach that, but you also
give something in return, notjust to NIL, but if you look at
these power five schools now,they have everything.
Like if I'm an athlete, I'm notgoing to give up my 42-inch
screen TV that's by my locker.
I'm not giving up the lazyswimming pool, the barbershop,

(35:06):
the music studio.
Their dorm rooms are generallyseparated from the general
population.
I think if there's a student inthere, he works for the team,
right?
And I've seen dorm rooms thathave full-on basketball courts,
movie theaters.
And so these schools give andgive and give to these athletes
regularly.
to keep them silent, right?

(35:26):
So they don't, you know, buckthe system.
I like to point out when I talkabout this, it's like Frederick
Douglass, right, talks aboutthis Christmas time on the
plantation.
Christmas time on the plantationwas, here's some alcohol, here's
party, here's lots of food.
And what happens is the ownerswant the enslaved folks to

(35:47):
forget about how bad they haveit.
And all of a sudden, I'm givingyou all this stuff.
And that's very similar, I see,that happens right now.
We're giving you, as you guyssaid earlier, we're giving you
all these things, all thismoney, all this nice thing, so
you don't kind of rebel againstthe system, right?
But as you suggest, history isvery powerful.

(36:07):
And I think that that's whystudents are A lot of these
college athletes aren't aroundthe general population, right?
I think the majority of themprobably take, especially the
big time schools, probably takeonline classes now.
So I was watching Florida afterthey won the national
championship and some of theguys were asked, what are you
going to do for class tomorrow?
And more than half of them waslike, I don't go to class,

(36:29):
right?
I'm online.
And that's designed, right?
It's easier for them to gettheir education, but it also
keeps them away from thestudents who are also protesting
or talking about things oncampus.

SPEAKER_02 (36:40):
Yeah.
And Chris, I'm going to come toyou because you had mentioned
about union, right?
And unionizing of athletes atthe college level.
And I, I focus on the collegebecause I think it's such an
interesting business model.
I really do.
I think it's, it's moreinclusive of society, business,
et cetera.
But we just saw Dartmouth men'sbasketball, you know, last year
tried to unionize and theyactually did, they were

(37:01):
accepted.
And the school was like, yeah,we're not even, we're not paying
you any mind.
We're not, we're going to ignorethat you just actually
unionized, you know?
So what, what do students do?
do in that case?
Do they say, well, we're notgoing to play, but you have to
then sacrifice what you haveworked so hard for to say, well,
I might sit out the entireseason.
Can I afford to even attendDartmouth at that point?

(37:24):
Right.
Because I know obviously they'reIvy leagues and they don't give
athletic scholarships, but youknow, maybe they, they cannot
afford it or, you know, someother things might happen.
Do you think, or what would beyour advice to athletes who have
said, you know what, I'm sort ofon, on the fence about, do I
unionize or do I stay quiet?

SPEAKER_04 (37:43):
Yeah.
So that's, that's a really toughquestion that can only be
answered by the individual,right?
Because my situation is going tobe different than someone else's
situation and their situation isgoing to be different than
someone else's situation.
But at the end of the day,rights aren't given.
Rights are taken.
You have to fight if you wantsomething.
And history has shown that overand over and over again.

(38:04):
Like no one who's in a positionof power ever voluntarily says,
we're going to give up some ofthat power to make your life
better.
That just doesn't happen.
And a lot of times in order toengage in that fight, you do
have to give something up.
You have to be willing tosacrifice something.
And it's what I think isimportant is that A lot of times

(38:25):
these discussions center aroundlike athletes of color, right?
Like, or they center aroundwomen or trans people or, you
know, people who are beingoppressed.
And what we need to have happenis people like me who are
straight white men who benefitfrom the system currently in
place.
We need to be the ones on thefront line saying this is not

(38:46):
okay.
And that we are willing tosacrifice some of the power that
we get simply by virtue of beingwho we are, because that is is
not fair to everyone else, andultimately it is corrosive to
our society as a whole.
Because if your society hashaves and have-nots, eventually
the have-nots will reach a pointwhere they're going to do

(39:06):
whatever it takes to have theirlives be livable the way they
want to live.
And as a history and poli scimajor, I would prefer not to get
to that point because that pointnever ends well.
So instead, and that's why I'msaying why unions are so
important, when we come togethercollectively we can accomplish
so much, but it has to be peoplewho are currently benefiting

(39:30):
from the system, understandingthat you got to be involved too.
Like you've got to be out thereon the front lines.
You have to be part of, of thepeople that are sacrificing.
You can't rely on the oppressedto do everything themselves.
Like we have to be out theretoo.
And so, yeah, I just, I think, Ithink for an athlete, it's also
really tough because you have alimited lifespan, right?
Like no, no athlete is going tobe able to play their sport

(39:51):
forever.
And in most cases, like,especially in a sport like like
football, you're only going tobe able to play if you get the
chance to play in the NFL forlike three, three and a half
years.
So that makes it really hard toask someone to sacrifice that.
But at the end of the day, if noone is willing to sacrifice, if
no one is willing to step up andcollectively say, you know what,
this might make it worse for usin the now, but it's going to be
better for our descendants inthe future.

(40:13):
Well, then nothing ever reallychanges.
So yeah, I'm not, I'm not goingto say that people have to do
that, but I would sure like itif people did that and I'm
willing to do that.
So I'm just hoping more peopleare willing to do that.

SPEAKER_02 (40:24):
Akwesha, I want to come back to you because you
have very interestingexperience, right?
You come from a big, big school,Texas, right?
And now you're at HBCU and eachare still facing different
challenges, right?
And I think that's reallyinteresting.
But from an athlete point ofview, right?
Do you think, A, that if I,because I've written about this,

(40:46):
you know, I think two, threeyears ago, if majority of the
Texas players, particularlyblack Texas players had said, we
are not going to play this weekagainst Oklahoma if you are
going to make us sing Eyes ofTexas, right?
We're just going to sit out.
A, do you think that would work?
Because we've seen the threatsand the reactions that have come
to the players when they triedto do that.

(41:08):
And B, what do you think wouldhappen at an HBCU campus if some
of the HBCU students said, youknow, listen, we're fighting for
change.
You know, we want change.
We need better housing orwhatever.
And they came to the athletes totry to help.
Do you think you would see thatsame type of activism at an HBCU
that you might see at a DivisionI FBS school?

SPEAKER_06 (41:29):
That's a very interesting question, and it's
something that I've beengrappling with in research I'm
currently doing.
One, I want to say, and I wantto piggyback off of what Chris
said, collective activism andcollective outrage is going to
help.
when someone with privilege,when someone from leadership,
when someone with power is goingto be at the helm of that push.

(41:53):
Because we know that athletes ofcolor, people of color, women,
individuals from the LGBTQIAplus community, all of these
marginalized populations, theydo have a little bit more at
risk.
When we look at Texasspecifically, I want to
wholeheartedly say, yes, itwould work, but we have seen in
the past that they have calledthe bluff, especially on the

(42:16):
school song.
And it's, there's so many peopleof power who are behind that
song.
And that's the tradition.
That's the backbone of Texas.
That's what makes the Longhorns,the Longhorns, like they are
riding and dying for that song.
So I feel like, Yes, it would begreat to see collectively a
group of black athletes to say,hey, we're not gonna play, we're
not gonna do this.

(42:37):
But we would really need thatpush from leadership from
straight white men withindividuals with power on that
campus to say, you know what, weare behind these students.
And yes, we're going to resistagainst you playing the song and
adopting the song to representthe University of Texas.

SPEAKER_02 (42:54):
So if I can, if I could jump in, what would happen
if Arch Manning?
had said, I'm gonna jump in.
I'm gonna support that cause.
All of a sudden you've got anotable name who hasn't barely
even played yet, but the Manningname carries weight, right?
Do you think that would help?

SPEAKER_06 (43:12):
Absolutely.
I think for a couple of people,they might clutch their pearls a
little bit.
I think it'll be kind of one ofthose moments where it's like,
are they serious?
And then now you really have tothink, do we call the bluff?
Knowing how powerful that nameis, that is the type of
individual that you would needto be behind you to kind of say,
all right, we're gonna actuallytry and make some change.
There might be a little bit ofshift here.

(43:33):
So somebody like Arch Manningand someone with that much power
The family that they have, yes,I absolutely think we would see
conversations.
I don't think it would happenoutright.
I think there would beconversations to see maybe
there's ways we can mitigatethis or kind of get around it or
maybe not play it before thefootball.
They'll try to negotiate ways tokind of have the song less

(43:56):
visible, but I think they woulddefinitely take the threat a
little bit more seriously havingan athlete like Arch Manning
behind them.
On the HBCU side, I think it's alittle different because, you
know, all all the athletes lookthe same.
And so a lot of their issuesthat they're fighting, they're

(44:16):
not necessarily fighting issueswhen it comes to power dynamics
with race and things of thatnature.
I think it's just more so moreso like.
resource allocation and nothaving the funds, the access,
the capability to support someof the things that they want.
So I definitely think that theycan collectively.

(44:38):
I'm a big advocate forcollective activism because it
lessens the risk, right?
If there's more of you out herepushing and fighting for the
change that you want, it's alittle bit more of an increased
opportunity for your voice to beheard and less retaliation or
repercussions for thoseindividuals who are trying to
stand up.
I just think it's thecapabilities of what the

(44:59):
institutions have, you know,HBCUs, especially private ones,
their resources are a littlescarce and few in between.
And so I think we would actuallysee a lot of backing from the
regular student populationcoming into that as well,
because it's issues that are notonly gonna be affecting the
athletes, it's going to beaffecting all the students on

(45:20):
campus.
So I think in that way, thatwould be very effective.
ways to use their voices becauseit's a community.
It's all the students comingtogether.
There's not so much a divisionor separation from the student
athletes in the regular studentpopulation at a school like
Benedict as it would be at aschool like UT.

(45:40):
So I think you would see alittle bit more of a common
cause, a little bit more of aneasier collection with students
at HBCU as opposed to at largerPower Five schools where they're
trying to kind of look and seekfor those people that they need
to be on the front lines forthem for their message to

(46:01):
actually get heard.

SPEAKER_02 (46:03):
We have about 10, 15 minutes left.
I just want to do one morequestion.
Johanna, I'm going to aim it atyou as it relates to college and
then I want to transition topro, but we are all professors
at a different level.
We've taught at institutions, etcetera, and we continue to
teach.
It doesn't matter aboutdivision, right?
College athletics has changeddramatically.
But on the other side of it, wesee higher ed now under attack

(46:26):
from many different areas,right?
From political attacks, fromfunding cuts, et cetera, et
cetera.
And it's going to affecteverybody.
Do you think there's a pointthat I think it's coming very
soon.
But John, are you personally, doyou think there's a point where
athletics and academics have tostand together and say, now,
listen, we are going to fightthis$2.2 billion cut, this$400

(46:49):
million cut, et cetera, etcetera, because it affects all
of us.
It doesn't matter if you're anathlete or you're an academic or
a student, et cetera.
Or do you think that, you knowwhat, athletics is heading in
such a position, particularly atthe FBS level, that you might
only have two major conferencesin the next five years where the

(47:09):
SEC and Big Ten are like,listen, we can run by ourselves.
Notre Dame, we can run byourselves.
And so we're not worried aboutthe academic side of it.
Where do you think that the nextthree to five years holds for
the either inclusion of both ordo they go their separate ways?

SPEAKER_05 (47:26):
Oh, this is such a tough question.
I don't know if I have a goodanswer for that.
I mean, I think...
Oh, I think the only way fromthe academic side, I think the
only way to like resist thefascist state.
And I'm talking about ourcurrent government, but fashion
has been on the rise.
I mean, as, as, as us asanything.
And I study, I do Europeanhistory.

(47:47):
I teach a lot about interwarEuropean fascism.
So there are obviously trendsthere.
And then there are obviously along history here.
So from that perspective, Ithink the academics, I, we need
athletics.
And this is the case that I maketo my school all the time.
We're a small private school.
So we fly into the radar.
We don't have funding likethat's, kind of threatened in
the same way.

(48:08):
But as I said, we've beenstruggling for enrollment for a
very long time.
And one of the struggles withenrollment is this message in
the media that's been going onsince Reagan in the 60s and 70s,
if not earlier, that we don'tneed higher education and we're
going to privatize highereducation to keep black and
brown people and women andactivists out of, well, we

(48:30):
can't, we can't, what is it?
What did he say?
We can't have these like radicalproletariats entering college.
We need to create more barriersfor them.
So I see it as kind of part ofthat longer fight, which
dovetails actually reallyinterestingly with the creation
of the student athlete moniker.
And as Lou already said, thedecrease in like, I athletic
fellowships from four to oneyear.
But anyways, yeah.

(48:51):
So I think from an academicside, we absolutely need
athletics.
We need to stand togetherbecause I think that this
collective action we've beentalking about, if there's a, if
we can, If we can do this beforefootball and other revenue
sports potentially break off,and I think if we can get
athletes invested in this ideathat they are harming your
educational opportunities, whichis considered part of your pay,

(49:12):
then I think that may click forthem that if we are in this
fight together and we resistwhat is now called the anti-DEI
fight, but it's really thiswhite supremacist fight that's
been going on for so long, thatthis is actually harming your
education, but also impactingwhat's going on in the field.
We see the rates of harassingharassment that female

(49:33):
basketball players is just goingoff the charts and most of them
being female basketball playersof color, right?
So for me, I see all of thesefights as being really, really
deeply intertwined.
And I think this kind of siloingof communities and this siloing
of interests as equation ofother people talking about, I
think it's very dangerous.
I get it from the athlete sidethat you only have so much space

(49:54):
and you are worried about yourown life.
And there was a really good,interesting question about, you
know, to what extent wouldunionizing potentially be an
added stressor.
I think that's kind of how itwas phrased in terms of mental
health because athletes alreadyhave so much that they have to
think about.
But I think really that's theonly way is that we're in this
kind of fight in the struggletogether, but whether that's
going to happen in a couple ofyears, I don't know, as I'm

(50:15):
currently trying to think aboutwhat is all of our collect, what
are all of our collective livesgoing to be like?
And then the last thing thatI'll say is that, I think we saw
what happened in our collegecampuses with all these
universities basically trying totake out all of these students
who were protesting forPalestine.
And when we talk about UTAustin, we talk about many
campuses, what was it, OhioState that put snipers on the

(50:36):
roof, right?
Like there were all of thesekind of bellwethers that we saw
all about all of the studentactivism on campus, some of
which did include athletes andthey were just taken out by
Democrats included, right?
So I think we have to see all ofthese domestic international
struggles is really deeplyintertwined in order to kind of
fight together.

SPEAKER_02 (50:57):
Excellent.
So I'm going to transition nowto the pro side because we only
have a few more minutes left.
Lou, I'm going to come to you.
You have mentioned JackieRobinson.
There's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
There's, you know, LeBron andSteph.
We've seen Dawn Staley, right?
A lot of the big names.
But the problem is there's notmany of them.

(51:19):
And we don't know who that nextlayer will be to come up or if
there will be a next layer,because we don't see that sort
of handing of the baton like wesaw from the 50s, 60s, 70s and
80s and even 90s.
Do you think that in the prolevel that there will be that
next level?
And where do you see itstarting?

(51:41):
Meaning what league do you seeit coming from?

SPEAKER_03 (51:44):
Oh, yeah, that's a tough question.
I'm

SPEAKER_02 (51:47):
giving you all

SPEAKER_03 (51:48):
tough questions today.
I know.
No, I would say one thing peoplehave to keep in mind is that
even when we talk about 60s and70s, it's really a short period,
right?
Like, a lot of the activism isdone in the early 70s, right?
People got free agency came,people got paid, you know,
people got on commercials.
And so that really changed.

(52:08):
Like, oh, I don't want to messup my, you know, as the young
kids say, I want to mess up mybag, right?
Like, when you go from making$100,000 a year to a million
dollars plus endorsement, thatchanges your relationship with
the community.
And I think That's why you havesuch this large gap.
So like guys like Craig Hodgesor Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in the

(52:29):
90s, they're really likeisolated figures.
It's really then we'll get thiskind of post-2012, you know,
Trayvon Martin, the heat wearinglike hoodies or something become
a big deal, right?
Which is very small thing.
But from there until GeorgeFloyd, that's only eight years
and it's really died down then,right?
So to say like who's next,what's next is hard because

(52:50):
again, small history, but weknow it's coming, right?

UNKNOWN (52:53):
So, you know,

SPEAKER_03 (52:53):
The reason why you're not going to see it right
away is because the people whostep out, they get punished,
right?
Ali lost three years of hiscareer.
John Carlos and Tommy Smithessentially lost their whole
careers.
Craig Hodges got blacklistedfrom the league.
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, after thatcontract was up, after two or

(53:13):
three years, he was gone.
Kaepernick's gone.
I think they penalized for avery specific reason.
I was doing some research for mynext project, and I was reading
from guys from the 1980s.
It's not basketball, it'sbaseball.
They're like, if we split aboutracism we're gone right and so

(53:33):
these superstar athletes in the1980s are making a point like i
i've seen the lesson that'sgoing to happen to me and so
it's very hard to predict herenow 2025 who's coming next what
sports plus i think when you addinto and we haven't gotten that
conversation today is thesporting landscape has
completely changed when we talkabout youth sports, right?

(53:56):
Like, there are people who,since the age of five, have put
in, like, two-a-days.
They're not risking everything,and they're solely focused on
their sport, right, and gettingbetter.
So I don't expect them to doanything because now, with NIL,
now I only have to make it tocollege to get paid, right?
But to get there, I gotta havewhatever they call that mamba

(54:18):
mentality.
I gotta like focus totally on mysports.
Then you add in, which wehaven't had a conversation, AI,
not Allen Iverson, but AI in theclassroom, which means there's
less and less critical thinkinggoing on from our students.
Like as college professors, I'msure we could do a whole show on
that, how frustrating it is.
So you're going to get less,like say Chris Cluies out there

(54:40):
who are, like he seems, he's ahistory major, a poli sci major,
and he did the reading.
They're not doing the reading asmuch, so they're not really
prepared to have those battles.
And it's no knockoff.
knock on them because the toolsare there.
It's just frustrating as aprofessor, by the way.
I'll stop there before I go offmore on AI.

SPEAKER_02 (55:00):
No, and I think that's a very valid point.
And it actually is a perfecttransition to my last question
that I'm going to pose to all ofyou.
And Chris, I'm going to come toyou first with this question.
Do you feel like we have reacheda point in the current
environment that we are in, bothin this country and maybe even
worldwide in a sense, thatfocusing on social issues and

(55:21):
focusing on cultural issuesneeds to take a backseat to the
economic fight when it comes tojustice and sports.
And by that, I mean, forexample, if Steph Curry and some
of the big, big names that aremaking big, big money say,
listen, we're not going to play.
We're not going to show up.
We're going to have a sit inunless X, Y, and Z changes,

(55:44):
right?
That's an economic type of fightversus athletes who maybe are
not making any money or, youknow, don't have as big a name.
They sit out and they could bepunished pretty severely.
So do you think the fight needsto shift or have we reached that
point in this environment whereit needs to be an economic push
versus a social and culturalone?

SPEAKER_04 (56:06):
Well, so the thing is, is that I think we've all
been kind of dancing around thebigger problem, which needs to
be addressed, which is the factthat what's happening right now
is the result of late stagecapitalism.
And that's actually the fight weneed to have.
And that encompasses socialissues, that encompasses
economic issues, thatencompasses athletics, that

(56:27):
encompasses people who work atuniversities, who work at steel
plants, like who basicallyanyone in our society Because
you are operating under latestage capitalism, you are so
fearful for your job because ifyou do not have your job, you
cannot survive.
And being an athlete is nodifferent.
And that's why you don't seeathletes speak up.

(56:47):
Because if you spend your entirelife getting as good at your
sport as you can be to get paidfor it, you haven't developed
those other skills that willallow you to get a job
elsewhere.
And under late stage capitalism,that means you potentially die.
That means you're potentially...
Your family potentially diesbecause like, make no joke,
especially in football, a lot ofthese guys come from very poor

(57:11):
socioeconomic backgrounds.
Like getting that paycheck meansthey're not only lifting
themselves out of poverty,they're lifting their family and
generations of their family outof poverty.
So if we really want to addressthis, like it can't just be an
athletic thing.
It has to be a full socialmovement of which athletics is a
part saying we want things likeuniversal healthcare.

(57:33):
We want a universal basicincome.
We want to be able to live liveswhere we're not dependent on the
whims of a rich old white dudesigning his checkbook to
determine whether or not we liveor die.
And so this conversation righthere is focusing on the, you
know, obviously the athleticside of that, but that's the
fundamental underlying questionthat we really need to address

(57:54):
as a society is, are we okayliving in this type of world?
And Personally, I don't want tolive in that kind of world.
I want to live in a world wherepeople play sports because they
want to play sports.
And the people who are reallygood at playing sports, yeah, if
other people want to give themsome more money, that's cool.
But it's not a matter of lifeand death.
It's not a matter of your familystarving in Mississippi because

(58:16):
football was the only way out.
That's what I want people totalk about.
And that's what I want us toaddress because otherwise our
society is still just going tokeep crumbling because we're
patchwork.
We're not addressing the rootcause.

SPEAKER_02 (58:30):
Johanna, I'm going to come to you.
Same question.
Do you think we've reached thepoint where the society push,
the cultural push, thenarratives there need to take a
backseat to more of the economicfight when it comes to activism
in sports?

SPEAKER_05 (58:47):
I don't see how we can separate it, to be honest.
I also feel like that is anargument that people will say
when they say, well, what aboutthe white working class is
they'll say, like, if we were tomake this strictly a class based
argument, then we can bring inthe white working class.
And that is what's going to getus somewhere.
But that's not a that's that'sinaccurate in a lot of different

(59:10):
ways.
And that also eliminate thatalso like leaves out the white
middle class, which has a bigrole and late state capitalism
and imperialism.
So I don't think we can separatethese things.
I could see how a lot of peoplemight see that focusing
specifically on the economicargument that that might get
more, that might create abroader base of support.

(59:32):
But I think that eliminates thereally key aspects, the key ways
in which our society isdiscriminated against all these
different people based on whothey are.
I also speak as someone withphysical disabilities from being
in a Vision One athlete fromcognitive disability of ADHD.
So I've been thinking a lotabout how, frankly, eugenic the

(59:53):
current structure is becomingmore and more.
I think our society has beeneugenic for a very long time,
but specifically going after themarginalized groups of society
that are government, but this iswidely held across the political
spectrum, that people should be,how do I say, that the people's
value only lies in the productthey're able to produce for
society.
And I think humans deserve toexist because we're humans, not

(01:00:16):
because of what we produce forsociety.
And so for me, also onlyfocusing on the economic
argument also hinges on the factthat capitalism determines our
value based on what it perceivesto be as valuable.
So that automatically eliminatespeople like me, but also
disability history and eugenicsis also based on a white society

(01:00:38):
such as myself, right?
So it eliminates all kinds ofgroups of people.
Yeah, so I don't know how wecould only focus on this as an
economic argument, because Ithink that erases all of the
history It erases many groups.
And I just, I don't, to go backto Lou's point about AI, that is
just frankly inaccurate if wewere to do that, but I also show
your frustration.
So I just wanted to say that.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:59):
Perfect.
Equatia, I'll come to you andthen Lou, I'll get you last.
Same question, Equatia.

SPEAKER_06 (01:01:05):
Yeah, I'm definitely going to piggyback on what
Joanna said of this idea.
It's the two are absolutelyintertwined.
They're entangled.
I can't imagine the, having adiscussion about one without
having a discussion about theother.
And so she actually saidsomething very interesting, this
idea of entrance convergence,right?
That's what I thought of whenI'm thinking about critical race
theory, I'm thinking about Belland this idea of we're only

(01:01:28):
going to allow, we're only goingto accept as much as you can
when you are doing something forme, as long as I'm getting
something out of this, right?
And so we think about collegeathletics in the space of sport
as, you know, this exploitativesystem where we're allowing you
to do this.
And going back to her point of,you should just be grateful that

(01:01:51):
we're giving you this place inthis place to play and to live
out your dreams and to hopefullymake some money for your family,
you know, get this kind of ideaof upward mobility, moving up
socioeconomically, right?
This idea of this exploitativesystem, controlling profitable
system that only benefits onegroup of people.

(01:02:12):
And so we say that it can, it isan economic conversation,
obviously, but it is fueled bythis idea of social and cultural
issues and whose backs are beingthe ones who have to carry the
weight and the burden ofeverything that we're talking
about today.
And those are usually gonna bepeople from the disadvantaged

(01:02:33):
and marginalized populations.
So they can't be one without theother.
I feel like you can't ignore onebecause they both kind of
economic, socially, culturally,they all kind of come in twine
while we're having theseconversations.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:45):
Perfect.
Lou, we got about five minutesleft and I'm gonna finish with
you since I started with you,right?
We're gonna talk about historyand come to the present, right?
I'm going to preface thequestion to you by this.
We have seen in history thatwhen social, to everyone's
point, when social, cultural,and economic factors come
together, it is a much strongerfight, right?

(01:03:07):
When they bind together, it is amuch stronger fight.
We saw Jackie Robinson at the,you know, protest the
Alzheimer's game and said, Iwish there was a black manager.
And all of a sudden, FrankRobinson, you know, gets hired.
Do you think that that formulacan work in today's society
because we've seen it.
And history does repeat itself.

(01:03:28):
Or do you think there has to besome new way of pushing this
fight through from athleteactivism?

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:35):
Yeah, so just on Jackie's point, I think that was
at the World Series 1972 and hedied like right after that.
And then Frank Robinson becomesa manager in 1974.
I think we only have like twoblack managers now, right?
So there's not like this bigshift that Jackie made there.
But I think what we have tounderstand, I think Chris brings

(01:03:55):
up this point, is that theathletes are second in the
movement.
And they're second in themovement just because, I mean,
it's hard to be out in themovement, right?
It's not easy to be in part ofthe Freedom Rise or the sit-ins.
And so you don't see a lot ofathletes getting involved until
after that, right?
We're talking about tens ofthousands of people part of this
protest, right?

(01:04:16):
The sit-ins was like almost70,000 people in 1960.
George Floyd, we saw that post,you know, everyone's out in the
street during COVID post-GeorgeFloyd, but we also saw what you
were talking about.
It's a revolt, right?
NBA went on strike, WNBA went onstrike, MLB went on strike.
Everybody went on strike forlike two days and then they got
back to work, right?
So it's really hard for them toprocess anything beyond that,

(01:04:39):
dang, I gotta play, I gotta winthis championship, right?
But it is, what we know is thatthey do have a lot of power and
we need them to use theirplatform, but they're always
gonna come second.
The other thing we talk abouthow everything's intertwined is
that we spend so much on sportsEven we stop to think of, we

(01:05:01):
don't really think about likewhen we build a new arena or a
new football stadium, like whenthe Vikings build that billion
dollar stadium or someone buildsthat, how it impacts society,
right?
When we're using public dollarsfor private goods, we're talking
about how everything'sinterconnected.
If we don't use public dollarsfor these private stadiums, then
what can we do when it comes toeducation or resources and stuff

(01:05:23):
like that?
So sport, athletes, society,it's so interconnected that we
don't have enough time to talkabout it.
but, but one thing is clear isthat when athletes do speak out,
there are changes because wejust, we celebrate them.
We revere them in society.
And so they do have power, butwe can't wait.
We can't wait for them to be forit first, right?

(01:05:44):
They're always going to comeafter something.
So when there's anothermovement, my bet is that you'll
see more athletes involved onthe front lines until that
movement seems to be done.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:55):
We got, Two minutes left.
I'm going to ask you all for a30 second answer equation.
I'm going to come to you.
Will athlete activism,particularly at the college
level, will it be revived orwill it go away?

SPEAKER_06 (01:06:14):
I want to say it's going to be revived.
I think if we want empoweredathletes, we have to build
empowered systems.
And so we need to think aboutwhose voice are we going to
protect and whose voice are wegoing to uplift?
Because Without care, they havevisibility, but without care,
it's just strictly exploitation.
So how can we move pastperformative measures to create

(01:06:35):
systems and environments wherethey feel empowered enough to
speak up and kind of use theirvoice to affect real change?
So I think it's possible.
I just think we need to do a jobof building an environment that
can support them in that way.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:49):
Chris, I'll come to you.
Will athlete activism,particularly at the college
level, will it survive or willit be revived or will it go
away?

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:56):
It's always going to be revived because athletes are
part of society.
And as long as society hasexisted, there's always been
people who have wanted controland people who resist that
control and say, no, we want tolive our own lives.
And athletes are no differentthan everyone else.
We're human beings.
So I think there will always bea place for athletes to speak
out.
And again, it just comes down tothe individual courage.

(01:07:18):
Does someone take up that batonand say, you know what, even
though I don't particularly wantto do this, it's my time to do
it.
I got to do it.
And I think that's always gonnahappen.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:28):
Johanna, question to you.

SPEAKER_05 (01:07:31):
I mean, I have to be an optimist.
Otherwise, well, I'm not alwaysan optimist, but I feel like to
keep myself going, I need to be,even though a lot of times I'm
not.
But I think the other, like, Ithink to build on what everyone
else has said, like, I think...
our current political state isjust going to get worse and
worse and worse.
And so I think even if peopledon't feel that they are being
oppressed as an athlete, I thinkthey will see oppression in many

(01:07:54):
other ways in their lives.
And I think eventually it willhit them, which is sad.
I don't want it to hit themenough to feel like they have to
do something like, and I don'tthink any of us want that,
right?
But I think that is what it hasto take.
So I think regardless of whetherit's like cuts to healthcare,
cuts to basic educationservices, whatever, I think
eventually it's going to touchas many...
like many people to where it'sjust too much and they're going

(01:08:16):
to have to do something aboutit.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:18):
Lou, final word before you head to East Lansing.
Man, I got to go

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:24):
pick up one of my kids from school first.
Yeah, no, it's not goinganywhere.
But I wouldn't say it's notgoing to be every year, right?
It's going to be a big movement.
Maybe that push from the NCAA totake away some of that money,
right?
If they're talking about, well,if the administration say, hey,
we're going to cap that NIL, myguess is that athletes will

(01:08:45):
start to speak up forthemselves.
But also, as Joanna said, man,these are vibrant college
communities.
And I think you're going tostart to see a little bit more
protests on these collegecommunities and the athletes
won't be able to get away fromthat.
I think they'll be part of it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:00):
Excellent.
Well, listen, Equasia, Johanna,Chris, Lou, I truly appreciate
the time.
Dr.
Shepard, thank you for puttingthis together, allowing us to
speak.
Andrew, thank you very much forputting this together, allowing
us all to come together andtalk.
It's a very, very importantdiscussion that we need to
continue to have.
And I will just say this.

(01:09:21):
We have seen, as we said before,history has shown us that there
are ways to overcome the fightand the struggle and the
challenges that we're allfacing.
But I I think as somebody who isteaching students, as you all
are teaching students, some ofus have kids as well.
It is important that we continueto educate them, to show them

(01:09:41):
that there is a way to getthrough things.
And when it comes to athletes,they need to understand that
there have been great examplesof successful people, successful
athletes who have fought forchange.
And all it took was a little bitof courage and standing up and
fighting for it.
So it's important for us toremember that.
I appreciate all of you.
Thank you very much for yourtime and your great insight.

(01:10:05):
And Andrew, I will turn it backover to you.

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:08):
Thank you, Yusuf.
And I'll just echo yourcomments.
Thank you to all the panelists.
That was a fantastic discussionand a great way to get our
symposium started today.
So really appreciate it and lookforward to talking to all of you
again here soon.