UM Football Planning Social Justice Messages This Season
The University of Miami wasn’t among the college football teams that cancelled practice in the wake of the Aug. 23 shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin by police. However, the Hurricanes had honest discussions about the event as a team, led by its Social Justice Council and coach Manny Diaz, and the Canes plan to send messages on social justice during the season.
“I think we have a lot of good things planned for down the line when we start playing games so that’ll be a big thing for us this year,” said senior quarterback D’Eriq King, a member of the Social Justice Council.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it would do much, us cancelling practice. So we came out here (and) we had a really good practice that day. Coach Diaz led it and we had a really, really deep conversation about the whole injustice so I think that was good that we all came together. Even after something bad happened we all had to be around each other -- different races, different cultures, this and that, just talking about it with each other.”
Diaz, the son of a former Miami mayor, drew praise last month from ex-UM defensive end Gregory Rousseau, a likely first-round NFL draft pick who is sitting out this season due to COVID-19 concerns, for his social awareness and openness. Diaz, in his second season as UM's head coach, created the Social Justice Council.
“Coach Diaz is an amazing dude,” Rousseau said on a podcast on InsideTheU.com. “I feel like he's going to be one of the best coaches in college football when it's all said and done. Just his methods and just the fact that he doesn't just care about just football -- he talks about being a dad, being a brother and being a teammate. He really builds us up in every aspect.
"I feel like for him to, you know, say that stuff about Black Lives Matter and everything going on in the world, it was showing how much he cared about the team because obviously the team has a lot of black people on it.”
King, a transfer from Houston, has already established himself as one of the team’s leaders when it comes to social injustice. He thought UM’s conversations on the Blake shooting were productive, and he said the team had more than one discussion.
“We talked about it all week honestly,” he said. “We have a Social Justice Council and I’m one of the leaders on that council so we kind of just let everybody air their feelings out, how they feel about the situation. It can be sensitive to a lot of guys. And if it’s not sensitive to you, just having a conversation, I think it opens up a lot to a team, coaches, whatever. But yeah, we talked about it a lot.”
