Scoop: Private Team Meeting on Injustice - 'Define Your Legacy'
FRISCO - A week-ending Dallas Cowboys virtual team meeting extended beyond football and featured powerful testimonials and conversation on the subject of social injustice in America, according to team sources who participated in the sessions.
"It was all about how we all have families, and how we are our own family, and how together we want to leave a legacy,'' one Cowboys player tells CowboysSI.com. "Standing together, for what's right, is what we want to be remembered for.''
On Friday morning, CowboysSI.com broke the news that a Cowboys announcement/statement regarding George Floyd and racially-based social injustice was forthcoming. (The video above is that statement, which comes on the heels of team leader Dak Prescott's eloquently powerful $1 million commitment.) As this was going on, head coach Mike McCarthy took the lead in converting a football meeting into something else entirely.
"The direction this week from coach Mike McCarthy,'' writes my friend Laura Okmin of FOX Sports, who was first to reveal the news of the meeting, "has been focusing on conversations about George Floyd, racism, personal experiences and how to go from 'Protest to Progress.'''
Okmin reports the session included "raw and real messages by Gerald McCoy, Jaylon Smith and more.'' Players tell CowboysSI.com that Sean Lee was also on the list of passionate speakers.
The session, which I'm told, spanned about 45 minutes, is rooted, sources say, in McCarthy's multiple visits with smaller groups, eventually leading to the team-wide session. Okmin paraphrases McCarthy saying in the session, "This moment is so important - let’s stay in it. Let’s grow from it. Legacies can be defined by how we’ll move forward.''
NFL team meetings right now are restricted to the virtual sort during COVID-19. The NFL (and the state of Texas) has allowed coaches back into team headquarters at The Star in Frisco, but not yet players.
One player's presentation resonated with players, a team leader saying, ""Sports and the locker room has always broken the race barrier. Everyone is different, from different places. We look different but we're all brothers.
"If we can do that in the locker room, we can do it outside the locker room, too.''
The NFL, represented by commissioner Roger Goodell, has admitted to wrong-doing in how it has handled some of these issues in the past. That is likely the result of players across the league bonding over the issue of systematic racism in America.
"The meeting,'' one source says, "was all love. It was really, really positive in the face of such a sad and horrific topic. But it was great to have the feeling that know we all stand together on this.''
