Talking the ‘Civil War,’ Kevin Love, Keanon Lowe, coaching payouts and the film “Just Mercy”…
Covering a few sporting issues on my my mind this week …
Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes (photo from the @BeaverAthletics Twitter account)
Officials at Oregon State and Oregon have announced that the term “Civil War” will no longer be used in connection with the sports rivalry between the schools.
In a press release, OSU president Ed Ray said this: “Changing the name is overdue as it represents a connection to a war fought to perpetuate slavery.”
It was also a war fought to abolish slavery. And that side won.
OSU athletic director Scott Barnes said this: “A number of student-athletes, alumni and friends of Oregon State University have questioned the term ‘Civil War’ in our rivalry series in recent years.”
I doubt many, if any, student-athletes have objected to the term that has nothing to do with race relations or anything close to it in terms of the OSU-UO sports rivalry.
Many years ago, I remember some veterans objecting to the use of the word “war” in any newspaper sports coverage. While I understood their feelings, I felt they were taking the term out of context.
And the recent decision by OSU and UO is an overreaction to the George Floyd incident and to #blacklivesmatter — serious matters in our society but, again, totally separate from the Beavers and Ducks meeting on the athletic field.
In gathering information for my 2014 book, “Civil War Rivalry: Oregon vs. Oregon State,” I spoke with dozens of Black athletes from both schools. While some carried antipathy toward the opposite side, all seemed to enjoy what the intra-state rivalry was all about, and there was a great deal of respect for “the Civil War” all around.
I understand the sensitivity toward the racial issue in America today. But honestly, has anyone ever thought about “slavery” when watching Civil War football, basketball or baseball?
When I think about the Civil War — the actual war — I think about blood shed in part to right a very great wrong that had been perpetuated for many years in our country. Many Blacks, in fact, fought on the northern side and were instrumental in the victory.
The battle for equality remains a work of progress in our country. I would argue that sports has played a pivotal role in the advancement of race relations through the past 75 years — Blacks, whites and athletes of all races and colors playing alongside each other and against each other in spirited but respectful competition.
Some traditions and terms sometimes become outdated and no longer appropriate in a new day and age. This one seems pushed aside in the interest of political correctness.
And where does this end? How many buildings and street names and products must be changed in order to make everything right?
Kerry Eggers’ book The Civil War Rivalry
I guess that makes my book about “Civil War football” a collector’s item.
•••
Kevin Love (photo from @kevinlovefund’s Twitter account)
It was cool to see Kevin Love honored with the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at Sunday’s ESPYs, even if it had to be done virtually.
I’m friends with Kevin’s father, Stan, and have known Kevin since his freshman year at Lake Oswego High. At the end of Kevin’s senior basketball season, I wrote a two-part series with Love and the Lakers, who lost to Kyle Singler and South Medford in the state finals at Eugene. LO Coach Mark Shoff allowed me in the team’s locker room before, after and at halftime of the team’s state tournament games as Love ended his prep career. I could see then that Kevin -- who was honored as Gatorade National Male Athlete of the Year — was a special kid who was bound for big places.
But I did not know he was suffering from depression even during his childhood years. His parents weren’t fully aware of it, either. I had no idea until two years ago, when Kevin revealed his mental health issues to the public. Since then, he has become an advocate for the fight against mental illness through the Kevin Love Fund. Just this week, Love pledged $500,000 to establish the Kevin Love Centennial Chair in UCLA’s psychology department to help diagnose, prevent, treat and destigmatize anxiety and depression.
That’s good stuff from a good young man.
•••
Keanon Lowe (photo from @KeanonLowe’s Twitter account)
Another good young man is Keanon Lowe, whom Chip Kelly this week hired away from West Linn High to serve as an offensive analyst at UCLA.
I’ve never met Lowe, whom locals knew as an excellent football player during his time at Jesuit who went on to have a successful career at Oregon under Kelly and Mark Helfrich. Kelly thought enough of him to have him work on his staffs with the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers in 2015 and ’16.
“Keanon is a superstar in the making,” says Lake Oswego coach Steve Coury. Lowe was on Coury’s coaching staff in the All-American Bowl national all-star game in San Antonio last December.
Says Coury: “The kids gravitate to him. He has a great mixture of warmth and firmness about him. We’re going to hear big things of him in the future.”
The nation was introduced to Lowe last year when, as a security guard (as well as head football coach) at Parkrose High, he disarmed a troubled student who had entered a classroom with a shotgun. Lowe’s bravery was honored on several fronts, including Time Magazine’s “Heroes of the Year.”
Lowe took over a Parkrose program that had lost 23 straight games and went 12-7 in his two seasons, leading the Broncos to their first state playoff victory ever last season and earning Oregon 5A Coach of the Year honors. In January, he was hired as West Linn’s head coach after Chris Miller left to go the XFL. Five months later, he accepted a job he couldn’t pass on.
Coury -- on West Linn’s short list when Lowe was hired — is staying at Lake Oswego. Look for West Linn to re-hire Miller, who last month was hired as head coach at Franklin in the wake of the XFL’s folding. It would be a bummer for Franklin but good news for the Lions, who thrived under Miller’s direction.
•••
This month’s issue of Sports Illustrated addresses the changing landscape in sports, which includes what it calls “haircuts for coaches” — that is, paycuts — due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. You can read the story here.
I tweeted about that very thing on May 18, when I wrote, “Oregon has cut 10 percent from salaries of all coaches for the upcoming academic year due to the pandemic. The cuts should be 50 percent and permanent, with the difference going to student-athlete cost-of-attendance funding, a pittance compared to the bloated salaries of coaches.”
I should have emphasized that I didn’t mean to single out the Ducks, but was referring to Power Five college athletics in general. I’ve written about this multiple times through the years. Head football and basketball coaches should be making good salaries, but not a fortune at the expense of everything else in an athletic department.
How about halving the salaries of those coaches — along with any assistant coaches making $400,000 or more — and reducing ticket prices to make it possible for a middle-class family of four to actually be able to afford to go to games?
•••
Just Mercy movie
The “Black Lives Matter” movement and protests over George Floyd’s death piqued my interest in the 2019 film “Just Mercy,” which I watched and very much enjoyed this week. Watch it for free during the month of June 2020 here.
It’s based on a true story from the late 1980s and early 1990s of a Harvard-educated Black attorney who ventures to Alabama and winds up fighting to free an innocent Black defendant from death row.
Jamie Foxx was terrific as Walter McMillian, the man was was wrongfully accused, arrested and incarcerated for killing a young white woman. But Michael B. Jordan — quickly becoming one of my favorite actors — was brilliant as crusading lawyer Bryan Stevenson. I was introduced to Jordan as Adonis “Donnie” Creed in “Creed” (2015) and enjoyed his work in Black Panther (2018), but I was blown away by how good he was in “Just Mercy.”
The night before, I watched “Reconstruction: America After the Civil War.” As we consider race relations today, it’s important we take a look at our country’s history on the subject. I’m hopeful we can emerge from these painful times with progress in all areas and more harmony and unity among our various peoples moving forward.
What do you think? Share your comments below.
Be sure to sign up for my emails. Every email subscriber on June 30 will be entered for a drawing to win a signed copy of the book Bill Schonely and I wrote, Wherever You May Be…The Bill Schonely Story, available in bookstores everywhere.
