University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto and Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart on Monday supported the men’s basketball team, which faced adverse reactions after players and coaches, including John Calipari, knelt before Saturday’s victory in Florida to protest social injustice days after protesters stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC
In addition to the criticism the team has faced on social media, a local sheriff posted a video of him burning Kentucky t-shirts and local officials asked state lawmakers to disburse university funding.
“One value we all love in our country is the right to freedom of expression and self-expression,” said Capilouto and Barnhart in a joint statement. “This right for young students like these is also important, as they learn, grow and discover who they are and what they believe in. We will not always agree on all issues. However, we hope to agree on what is right for self-expression, which is so fundamental to who we are as a higher education institution. We live in a polarized and deeply divided country. Our hope – and that of our players and coaches – is to find ways to bridge the divide and unify. “
Sheriff John Root of Laurel County, Kentucky, released a video on Sunday showing him and a jailer burning shirts that commemorated some of Kentucky’s quarter finals. The video has already been deleted, but in a Facebook post on Saturday, the sheriff wrote: “Thinking that an alleged coach and team would take such actions makes me sick.”
On his radio show on Monday in Lexington, Calipari explained why the team decided to kneel.
“It was all the pictures they saw and they wanted their voice to be heard, and I said, well, ‘tell me what it is about,'” he said. “They talked to me about it. Then they said, ‘We would like you to kneel with us’, which I did. I held my heart, but I knelt with them because I support the guys. But it wasn’t about the military. Six of these players come of military families … It was not about the military. “
In Knox County, Kentucky, about two hours from Lexington, officials responded to the team’s decision to kneel by proposing that the state squander the University of Kentucky through a resolution “to reallocate tax financing from non-patriotic beneficiaries. for the Kentucky worker [taxpayers] throughout this community, “according to the Times-Tribune newspaper in Corbin, Kentucky.
The players said on Monday that they anticipated the reaction.
The great man Olivier Sarr said that they were using their platform as players to protest peacefully.
“I think our action speaks for itself,” said Sarr. “What happened in the past few days, a few weeks and even during quarantine, we just want to show support for our community and raise awareness about what has been happening recently. It comes from a place of understanding peaceful and open-minded conversations. That’s it.”
Isaiah Jackson spoke about the people who invaded the United States Capitol and referred to a loop that was erected outside the building.
“There were a few things,” he said. “Like, I saw the noose. It came out of the pocket. This is something people shouldn’t do. I think people have their own opinions, but that was just, like, out of the pocket. Just hacking is crazy for me. . “