Duke football players, coaches participated in Thursday’s protest on campus
I can’t breathe.
Those three powerful words stood out in bold, white writing on freshman defensive tackle DeWayne Carter’s black shirt on Thursday as he walked through Duke’s campus. He was one of hundreds of Blue Devil staff, student-athletes and coaches who joined together for a peaceful protest in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement, which was led by Duke men’s basketball Director of Operations and Player Development Nolan Smith.
It had been 167 days since Breonna Taylor’s death, 95 days since George Floyd’s murder and four days since Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back, prompting rallies and protests across the country.
The protest on Duke’s campus came as professional leagues, including the NBA, WNBA, MLB and NHL boycotted some games on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and college athletes across the nation made their voices heard.
Duke football players Chris Rumph II, Deon Jackson and Jalon Calhoun stood in the crowd at Krzyzewskiville, clasping their hands behind their back and wearing blue masks, as they listened to different speakers talk on stage, like women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson and men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski.
As he scanned Krzyzewskiville and stood with other members of the football team and fellow coaches, head football coach David Cutcliffe was excited about Duke’s rally because “as far as I could look, I just saw young person after young person.” For the head coach, it’s been a challenging time because of the “emotions that go with dealing with a virus that nobody can see but everybody fears” and the social unrest.
“You’re working with young people and you want them to feel hope for the future and excited,” Cutcliffe said. “This shouldn’t be a troubling time for college age persons.”
He admitted on Friday during Zoom media availability that he’s okay but emotionally drained.
“That drain is probably more than anything else I feel is just knowing that I want our players to feel a sense of well being and safety,” Cutcliffe said. “If you can manage that as a coach, the rest of this — the football coaching, coordinating the calling - all of that kind of comes natural. This other stuff takes quite a bit more energy and work.”
Cutcliffe, who has coached for 45 years and guided several different generations, said one of their jobs as coaches is to help the players understand “how they can be effective moving forward.” And on Friday morning, that’s what they did. The team spoke for an hour, focusing on growth, learning and how they can all make a difference.
“There are a lot of emotions,” Cutcliffe said. “There’s a lot of intensity surrounding these issues. A lot of activities surrounding these issues. What can you do as a young man, in the case of our program, moving forward to make a difference?
“And I love listening to them.”
While the head coach does have private conversations with his players, he mentioned that he “loves” seeing and hearing the other coaches “talk and reflect on their past.” Co-defensive coordinator Ben Albert spoke to his ‘rushmen’ on Thursday morning after practice, telling them to “maintain dignity for yourself” and “be respectful of other people.”
“It’s up to the good people to not turn a blind eye to things that are going on, but to have the courage to do the right thing,” Albert said to the players. “Always do right. There’s always room for right.”
Cutcliffe said these discussions are fluid and don’t simply go away. And as he stood among the student-athletes and members of the athletic department on Thursday, the head coach was excited because he could see his players had friends at the rally outside of the team and “you see a little bit of college life there.”
Everyone was gathered for the same purpose.
“We don’t just do these things in the face of tragedy, in the face of national news,” Cutcliffe said. “Where growth comes is consistently, day to day, how you live your life, and we spend a lot of time talking about that.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2020 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Duke football players, coaches participated in Thursday’s protest on campus."