Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dealing with turbulent times
Police brutality has already taken a toll on Pahokee football coach D.J. Boldin’s family.
Palm Beach Gardens police officer Nouman Raja shot and killed Boldin’s cousin Corey Jones in 2015. Raja was found guilty of manslaughter by culpable negligence while armed and attempted first-degree murder with a firearm in 2019. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
“For my family, obviously, this is personal to us because of Corey,” Boldin said. “Yes, we got vindication as our family, but I feel we are an anomaly. It’s one victory out of thousands or hundreds of thousands of losses for anybody that’s affected by oppression or everybody [who] has a connection or some type of way they’re affected by police brutality. They’re free to reach out to us.”
Boldin posted a message on his Twitter account Saturday, reaching out to his players in the wake of Minnesota resident George Floyd’s death while being held down by police and the anti-racism protests that followed.
“You don’t get to pick and choose when you have to be a role model or when you get to be a role model,” Boldin said. “You have to be a role model at all times, and the current situation in our country is something that has affected me, personally, because I am an African American man, and I’m still deciphering through my feelings and emotions.
“And then I think about the society and the time that we’re in now, where social media is ever prevalent for all kids. So my kids are actually seeing this, and I know they’re probably feeling some the same things that I’m feeling but don’t know how to effectively communicate it or how to verbalize it or know what’s right and/or wrong to say. And that’s where I felt I came in at.”
The last several months have been difficult for football coaches. Spring football and inperson workouts have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Although they still can’t hold in-person workouts and practices, coaches have been trying to guide their teenage players, many of whom are black, through discussions on race and police brutality.
“My players are impressionable young men, and they’re confused, frustrated, disappointed and outright [angry],” St. Thomas Aquinas football coach Roger Harriott said in a text message. “As a staff and community leaders, we’re focused on controlling the narrative to channel their negative emotions into positive solutions. Conflict resolution is a learned behavior and we teach it with love, understanding and motivation.”
Harriott urged the members of his coaching staff to speak to their players “with wisdom and understanding” in a message he sent to them Monday morning.
“We’re living in challenging times with emotions raging at an all-time high,” Harriott wrote in part of the message. “Dealing with an international pandemic and a violent national protest will not go away anytime soon.
“As coaches, I’m urging you to intelligently speak to our players with wisdom and understanding about our current state of affairs. … Keep in mind that we are dealing with young, impressionable individuals who are eager to be informed and hear from us as their source of holistic influence for the greater good.”
Boldin said Floyd’s death was particularly
emotional for him because it was captured on video.
“The situation with my cousin Corey was audio, but this situation with Mr. Floyd — it was video. It was [a] video camera,” Boldin said. “Everybody saw it. There was no speculation, no hairy statement that was said that could be interpreted different ways.
“This was something that was visual, and I’ve never watched someone be slowly murdered. I’ve never seen that. … To see the casual knee on the neck with the hands in the pocket and the body language that says a thousand words of that officer without him saying one word at all. Man, it was a blow.”
Boldin said he hopes he can use this time as an opportunity to approach his players and emphasize that even if they do go on to a long
football career, there is more to the world than football.
“My assistant head coach is the school police officer,” Boldin said. “They know Officer [Brad] Carney loves us to death. He’s a Caucasian man [and] he would never do anything to put us in harm’s way.
“But at the same time I think it’s my responsibility, once again, to open the conversation with my kids to lay the grounds and have an effective dialogue with them.”
John I. Leonard coach Keith Chattin said he wants to give his players an opportunity to speak their minds and ask questions, especially the younger players on his team.
“I’ve just got to give them a platform to talk because a lot of these guys are young,” Chattin said. “I’m really sophomore-heavy, so a lot of these guys are really young. More or less, we’ve got to earn their trust and they’ve got to understand that whatever’s going on, we’ve got their back.”
Chattin said he is organizing a Zoom meeting for football coaches to discuss social justice for later this week.
“We’re going to start a Zoom roundtable discussion,” Chattin said. “I’ve had several coaches reach out to me, saying, ‘Coach, I want to talk about special teams. Coach, I want to talk about offense.’ I said, ‘This is nothing about schematics of football.’
“This is totally about a bunch of coaches getting into a Zoom room — it’s going to be 100 coaches — and I’m going to open up the discussion about social justice, equality, inequality, race reform, police reform, government, stuff like that. I want to see how they’re approaching their kids and their programs, and I’m going to tell them how we approach ours.”