Bluefield College basketball players have decided to stay in the locker room for the rest of the season while playing the national anthem, rather than risking the potential penalty of additional forfeiture, striker Stanley Christian said Friday.
A day after the Virginia school forfeited its NAIA Appalachian Athletic Conference game against Reinhardt after all players were suspended for kneeling during the national anthem for several games in January and February, Christian said the players met and agreed to the season of the team, but don’t intend to refrain from speaking out against racial injustice and police brutality.
“It’s bigger than us, and we don’t want the season taken away from us,” the Norfolk, Virginia senior told ESPN. “We feel like we are in an excellent position to give this school a title. So we stay in the locker room during the national anthem. They don’t want any more play, and we would definitely take a knee during the anthem.”
On Thursday, school president David Olive announced in a statement the suspension of the entire team after players knelt before the national anthem before their home game on February 9.
Christian said the team “had a few meetings” and decided to kneel before the national anthem in January in response to the January 6 riots at the Capitol. Players knelt for several road games, but Christian said it was only after local media broadcast a story about the protests that the school ordered them to stop.
Olive said in a statement that he had tried to work with players to find other ways to voice their concerns without upsetting “ our college alumni, friends and donors, ” but Christian said the players were unhappy. were with Olive’s suggestions and believed the school just wanted to force them out of the public eye.
“During that meeting we had with him, he didn’t hear us at all. We tried to tell him our side of the story, and it was like we were talking to a wall,” said Christian. “He showed us that he didn’t care at the meeting, so we started standing up for what we believed in. They wanted us to do it their way, so they didn’t have to deal with media or people outside of Bluefield.”
Christian said players specifically referred to a major rally recently held on campus in support of former President Donald Trump, which stretched from the school’s basketball arena to the football stadium, and in which Confederate flags were flown, as an example of this. the school that forms of earlier protest on campus.
“So it’s okay for everyone to have a Trump rally with Confederate flags, but it’s not okay for us to kneel in front of our people who have fallen,” Christian said. “He couldn’t answer that.”
ESPN contacted Olive, sports director Tonia Walker and the school’s student counseling coordinator for comment via email, but no one responded.
After the suspensions were announced, players from the Bluefield men’s basketball team, along with others from soccer, women’s basketball and women’s soccer, took part in a video call to discuss their options and express frustration at feeling that their rights to the First Amendment had been violated.
In Olive’s statement, he specifically addressed those concerns.
“We are a private entity, not a government agency,” Olive said in his statement. “We have policies and guidelines throughout the Student Handbook and Academic Catalog that restrict certain rights that you might otherwise have elsewhere, such as at your home or in a public location. However, the most important thing for me in relation to this issue is what I When someone dons a uniform or performs a position on behalf of Bluefield College, that person now represents Bluefield College, and there are now heightened expectations of that person as to what he / she can and cannot do or say as a representative of the college. “
Christian said he was frustrated by that response and argued that the position of the players on the team should not determine their ability to speak out against racism.
“Dr. Olive told us our rights are limited if we put Bluefield over our chest,” said Christian. “Well, that jersey is actually a buoy for us. Now we feel like we’re chained right now, and that’s not right. And when that jersey comes off us, we’re still black in America, and I have to undergo that reality. eyes. “
A Bluefield footballer also left on Thursday to protest the suspensions, and footballer Collin O’Donnell, a military veteran, released a statement of support for the basketball players. Christian also said he grew up in a military household and his grandfather is a veteran.
‘We don’t respect the flag or the country. That’s not our intention, ”said Christian. “People assume they are not trying to understand why we are doing it.”
Christian said he is hopeful that the public debate over the protests will force Bluefield to make significant changes, including hiring more black faculty and staff and establishing more student groups to discuss and discuss important social justice issues.
Bluefield’s next game is at home on Monday against Milligan University.