STARKVILLE — With their right arms raised in the center of Unity Park, two blocks off Martin Luther King Boulevard and less than 100 yards from the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department, roughly 80 Mississippi State football players gathered Thursday evening in solidarity to protest against racial injustice in the United States.
“Black, brown, blue, whatever, it doesn’t matter,” senior defensive end and Starkville native Kobe Jones said as players prepared to disperse. “We love you all.”
Thursday evening’s protest came just hours after multiple sources confirmed to The Dispatch the Bulldogs were boycotting the day’s practice. According to a source with immediate knowledge of the situation, older members of the team met with the coaching staff to discuss their action and are expected to be back to normal today, though they noted the players had the coaches’ support.
“I applaud our players for expressing some of their fears and anxieties today,” head coach Mike Leach wrote in a tweet Thursday night. “I support them and look forward to working with them tomorrow, to use football to elevate us and the people around us. Hail State!”
The Bulldogs’ actions Thursday fell in line with a number of protests across the sports world — including a postponement of NBA playoff games Wednesday night — in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake, who is Black, by white police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin earlier this week. Blake survived despite being shot in the back seven times in an incident captured on video, and the shooting has reignited protests and unrest around the country centered on racial injustice in law enforcement.
MSU became the fourth Football Bowl Subdivision and second Southeastern Conference program to boycott practice on Thursday, joining South Florida, Boston College and Kentucky. The NHL also announced Thursday afternoon that all playoff games scheduled for Thursday and Friday had been postponed in protest of Blake’s shooting.
“For us and the players it’s been all ball,” inside receivers coach Dave Nichol said Wednesday. “Which at times is good, we can get our minds off of it. But I think it’s good to have those conversations.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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