Matt Kolsky wasn’t the only one who had a strong reaction to Nick Saban’s appearance on College GameDay over the weekend. The Alabama head football coach was being interviewed about his players’ social justice campaign. He said their message was that “all lives matter including black lives.”
Kolsky reacted harshly. The 95.7 the Game afternoon host tweeted “If football coaching wasn’t a thing, Nick Saban would be as appealing as herpes. The guy is a complete dirtbag with no other value to society.”
The phrase “all lives matter” has been adopted by opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement. That likely was not Saban’s intention though.
Many reacted harshly to Kolsky pointing out that in addition to charity efforts, Saban has also been very supportive of his players speaking out against racial and social injustice. He appeared in a video back in June put out by the University of Alabama’s football office that ended with the phrase “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter.” It is possible that Saban either re-worded that message or it came out in a clunky way on College GameDay. He also led his players in a march last month from the football facilities on the University of Alabama campus to Foster Auditorium, where Alabama Governor George Wallace once stood in the doorway refusing to admit black students.
After the criticism, Kelsey relented saying that he was wrong.
Kolsky deleted his initial tweet. He received some criticism for that too. He explained that it was not meant to deflect blame and reposted it in a different format.
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