There were a variety of protests on NFL sidelines Sunday, generated by President Donald Trump’s calls to fire players who have declined to stand for the national anthem in order to raise awareness of police brutality and racial injustice.

On Monday morning, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers said he keeps such matters private, echoing comments he made last fall in response to Colin Kaepernick’s first kneel during the national anthem.

“I don’t have a reaction to it,” Babers said. “We talk about a lot of things with the team and the team is just a second family. And that stuff is just family stuff. What they want to do outside the family is up to them … We keep that stuff in house.”

On three NFL teams, nearly all of the players skipped the national anthem altogether. During the national anthem Sunday, Buffalo Bills players locked arms while others knelt in a protest against racial injustice.

All but one player from the Pittsburgh Steelers refused to go out for the anthem. The exception was Alejandro Villanueva, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan

At Syracuse, Director of Athletics John Wildhack said in April that SU has not adopted a policy toward protests, nor does it intend to. None of the more than 600 Syracuse student athletes has outwardly protested during the national anthem, either by kneeling, sitting or staying in the locker room. Last fall, Wildhack and each of the coaches sat down and discussed how to address such protests, if they were to occur at SU.

“What we would ask is if anyone did plan to protest,” Wildhack said in April, “they do it in an appropriate manner. We would like an inkling if someone has a concern. We respect their right to exercise free speech.”

Wildhack declined to say the steps SU would take if an athlete expressed he or she wanted to protest. Men’s basketball head coach Jim Boeheim said last fall that he believes it’s important to stand during the national anthem and that he isn’t a “protest guy.” He said SU players are welcome to talk about it.

Babers declined to elaborate on the topic last fall, as well as this week.

Additional notes from Babers’ press conference Monday:

• Babers said “you could actually hear” Syracuse fans at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last weekend.
• After scoring again to cut the Tigers’ lead to just two with more than five minutes left, Babers decided to try what appeared to be an onside kick. But Cole Murphy sent the ball too deep and it was an easy recovery for LSU, which then used the shorter field to punctuate the game with a final touchdown. Babers clarified that it was not an onside kick attempt, but a “speciality kick” intended to go higher and farther down field.

Published on September 25, 2017 at 12:56 pm

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