Silence is Not Always Golden: Where is Swinney?
Where is the head coach of the presumptive No. 1 college football team in the nation? Where is the voice that can speak for the world of college football in a time when so many around the country are looking for healing words or a comforting thought after the tragic death of George Floyd.
Saturday alone, North Carolina head basketball coach Roy Williams, NC State basketball coach Kevin Keatts and football coach Dave Doeren, Purdue basketball coach Matt Painter and former NFL head coach Tony Dungy — among numerous others — have issued statements regarding the need for change to take place and recognizing the social divide that exists.
Even the quarterback, and one of the front-runners for the Heisman Trophy, of the Tigers, Trevor Lawrence, took to Twitter Friday to share his thoughts.
“There has to be a shift in the way of thinking. Rational must outweigh irrational. Justice must outweigh injustice. Love must outweigh hate. If you put yourself in someone else’s shoes and you don’t like how it feels-that’s when you know things need to change."
“I’m siding with my brothers that deal, and continuously deal, with things I will never experience. The injustice is clear. and so is the hate. It can no longer be explained away. If you’re still “explaining” it — check your heart and ask why."—Lawrence wrote.
While the Tigers quarterback took a stand, the fact is the outrage for Swinney to issue a statement is real.
In fact, Dan Wolken of USA Today took numerous coaches to ask for their silence.
"The pressure to take a public stand about how we need to change as a society, as a culture, was left to the young people, many of whom are grieving and scared," Wolken wrote. "The guys making millions of dollars? They were mostly sending tweets about recruiting, as if the entire concept of George Floyd wasn’t something that was hitting home at that very moment with every black player they recruited and promised to fight for.
"Where’s their fight now? Where’s the truth? It certainly wasn’t on social media, where hardly any head coaches even acknowledged that something was desperately wrong in America."
He continued to praise Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal, Georgia Tech's Geoff Collins and Indiana's Tom Holland for their statement, as well as Michigan's Jim Harbaugh for a statement made during a radio interview.
In 2016, Swinney made his only formal statement regarding the racial divide in America, when he was asked about his feelings regarding former San Francisco 49ers' quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem.
“I think everybody has the right to express himself in that regard. But I don’t think it’s good to be a distraction to your team. I don’t think it’s good to use the team as a platform. I totally disagree with that. Not his protest. But I just think there’s a right way to do things. I don’t think two wrongs make a right. Never have, never will. I think it just creates more divisiveness, more division. I think there’s a better way. How about call a press conference? Express your feelings. Everybody will show up, talk about it. Go and be a part of things, and protest them. That’s great. I think everybody has that right. I certainly respect that. But I just think that this just creates more division. That’s what I hate to see.
“I hate to see what’s going on in our country. I really do. I think this is a good world. I think this is a great country. It’s just that things get painted with a broad brush in this world these days. There’s more good than bad in this world. With Martin Luther King. I don’t know that there’s ever been a better man or better leader. To me, he changed the world. He changed the world through love in the face of hate. He changed the world through peace in the face of violence. He changed the world through education in the face of ignorance. And he changed the world through Jesus. Boy, that’s politically incorrect. That’s what he did. It’s amazing when we don’t learn from our past how you can repeat your mistakes.
“(The Bible) says, Love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. The second one is, love your neighbor as you’d love yourself. It doesn’t say love your neighbor from the same religion. It doesn’t say love your neighbor if they’re the same color as you. It doesn’t say love your neighbor if they pull for the same team as you. It doesn’t say love your neighbor if they’re the same gender as you, or whatever. (It doesn’t say) love your neighbor if they have the same sexuality as you. It just says, love your neighbor as you’d love yourself. If we all lived by that in this country, we wouldn’t have near the problems we have.
“There’s a lot of good police officers. There’s thousands of perfect traffic stops. Lot of good men. Lot of good women. But those don’t get the stories. There’s some criminals that wear badges. Guess what? There’s some criminals that work in the media. There’s some criminals that are football coaches. There’s some criminals that are politicians. There are criminals that work in churches. It’s so easy to say we have a race problem, but we got a sin problem. It’s just my opinion. That’s Dabo’s opinion.
“I think the answer to our problems is exactly what they were for Martin Luther King when he changed the world. Love, peace, education, tolerance of others, Jesus. A lot of these things in this world were only a dream for Martin Luther King. Not a one-term, but a two-term African American president. And this is a terrible country? There are interracial marriages. I go to a church that’s an interracial church. Those were only dreams for Martin Luther King. Black head coaches. Black quarterbacks. Quarterbacks at places like Georgia and Alabama and Clemson. For Martin Luther King, that was just a dream. Black CEOs, NBA owners, you name it. Unbelievable.
“Now, does that mean that there’s not still problems? Yes. Where there’s people, whether they’re black, green, yellow, orange or white, there is going to be sin, greed, hate, jealousy, deceitfulness. There’s going to be that. That’s always going to be there. But attitude, work ethic, love, respect for others, that doesn’t know any color.”
Whether or not you believe that Swinney's statement nearly four years ago is satisfactory for today's reality, the fact remains college football needs Swinney and Nick Saban to make statements — because silence is not always golden.
