'Something Like That Can Happen to Me'
Taking an extra day to think back hasn't helped.
In covering prep football games since 2011, at least professionally, I couldn't remember seeing what I did on Friday night just before Tampa (Fla.) Carrollwood Day hosted Clearwater (Fla.) Calvary Christian High School.
Multiple players on each team took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
There were no counter protests or cackling from the home or visitor crowd audible from field level, contrary to similar demonstrations in years prior. Even on the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it was quiet. The knees were taken sparingly for the home team while the visiting Warriors included a pocket of peaceful protesters. The largest cluster, made up of five including black and white teammates, were touching one another in what appeared to be a prayer.
You couldn't hear a word beyond the anthem itself.
"With everything going on in the world, I felt like it was the right thing to do," Michael Trigg told SI All-American after the game. Calvary Christian held off Carrollwood Day for a 16-7 victory.
The senior CDS tight end and defensive end happened to be the most high profile player on the field, a member of the inaugural SI99 as the nation's No. 3 H-Tight End prospect.
[Related: Michael Trigg closing in on a commitment]
The 6-foot-4, 230-pounder is also a basketball recruit with scholarship options coast to coast.
"LeBron James did it, NFL teams are doing it, locking arms," he said. "I saw my teammates do it so I'm like, 'I'm gonna take a stand with them.'"
The NFL's opening weekend included anti-racism messages from players and coaches arriving to games as well as on the field itself, protective masks, helmets and more.
College football players around the country have been using their platform for similar causes throughout the offseason.
High school players, especially those being recruited to play at the collegiate level, took stock in how coaches reacted to the social justice conversation.
"I always knew it was around," Trigg said of racism and police brutality. "Right now, in this current time, it seems like it's more than ever -- in my eyes -- since I wasn't alive in the old days. Now I'm just really seeing stuff for what it really is and it just opened my eyes.
"Being a young black man, I know I have to carry myself in a certain way, or something like that can happen to me. So I always carry myself a different way."
Trigg also uses the movement as motivation.
"It makes me work harder," he said. "When I think about stuff like that, I want to go to the field or go to the court or weight room and just grind.
"To change stuff."
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