Over the weekend, college football was back in action with a handful of games, which meant it was time for the season preview episode of College Gameday. The segment that took centerstage was the players-only conversation where Maria Taylor talked to a group of six players about social injustice in America and what they and their teams have done to respond to the deaths of a number of unarmed Black men and women at the hands of police officers.
After that segment played, the panel gave their thoughts on what has gone on in this country and it was Kirk Herbstreit’s thoughts that received the most attention with the emotion he showed on camera.
While Herbstreit’s comments have received praise from many on social media from people at ESPN, one person was not exactly thrilled with the coverage of that segment. Bomani Jones shared his thoughts on Twitter in response to a post done by Awful Announcing.
Jones noted that Herbstreit seemed sincere in his reaction to the stories he had heard, but did note that not a lot of attention was brought to the other perspectives on the panel. He was struck in particular by what Desmond Howard had to say.
Howard said he was happy that the players have a voice and that they understand that they have power. He even brought up an example of when he was at Michigan and the former Heisman Trophy winner thought about staging a boycott of his own.
“As a young man at Michigan, I was I guess what these young men would call woke. I was strongly against social injustices,” Howard said. “I remember one time where I wanted to lead a boycott myself and I spoke to a couple of players. It wasn’t that they weren’t on board, but some of them went back and told the coaches and then the coaches contacted my dad. At that point, I knew that they weren’t where I was mentally, but I understood that social injustices was something that greatly affected my people, my community, our society.”
David Pollack followed Howard and brought up the viewpoint that people shouldn’t nitpick every word that the players say as they try to find their voice to speak about the issues that affect them.
“There’s no right and wrong with racism. Racism is wrong. You can’t put that in any other box… The fact that those guys can stand up there and share what they are feeling. Don’t nitpick what people are saying. It’s hard to express your feelings. It gets easier as you get older and you get more mature. I could have never done it in a million years the way they were going to do that… It’s not their job to fix things. It’s our job to love everyone. It’s not their job to show us the way.”
As Bomani Jones mentioned, Herbstreit emotional reaction was a standout moment. At the same time, he emphasized that the focus should have been on the content of the show, including Lee Corso saying that he would vote not to play in the fall if he were a coach. Jones called it an example of people doing the “same stuff that they said they weren’t going to do anymore.”
Herbstreit’s comments were eye-opening to say the least, but it should not take away from everyone else’s thoughts on the issue of social injustice. And it really shouldn’t have over shadowed Maria Taylor’s work in what was a strong segment as part of College Gameday’s return to television in this “new normal.”
