The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Stefanski: ‘Attach your name’ to change
Stefanski is now front and center leading the Browns, not just as a coach, but also in the fight for social justice.
If Browns players ever wondered whether the new guy is on their side, his reaction to the events of the last two weeks has given them their answer.
Kevin Stefanski was hired as Browns head coach 149 days ago, on Jan. 13. Many of his players have yet to meet him in person because the NFL has banned players from team training facilities in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Interaction has been on Zoom and other forms of digital and social media.
Stefanski is now front and center leading the Browns, not just as an X’s and O’s coach trying to install a new offense, but also in the fight for social justice and equality in the wake of African-American George Floyd dying on May 25 while a white police officer knelt on Lloyd’s neck during an arrest in Minneapolis.
“First, I will start with we’re in Week 7 of our offseason program so the players to their credit and to the coaches to their credit, we’re working,” Stefanski said June 10 on a Zoom conference. “All the while, like the rest of the world, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking about social justice. Certainly, my big message to our guys has been to get in the arena. We are all about action.
“We want to be a strong part of positive change, and I realize that from my platform that I have here, I’m able to affect change. Something that (former NFL wide receiver) Anquan Boldin said in a meeting a couple of days ago that we were in, ‘Attach your name.’ That’s something that I take seriously. While I’m attaching my name and I’m leading a football team, I want these guys to know the impact that they can have.”
Boldin is a founding member of the Players Coalition. The Coalition recently gathered 1,400 signatures of current and former athletes and coaches/manager on a letter to the United States Congress supporting a bill to end qualified immunity for police officers accused of brutality.
Stefanski added his signature to the letter, as did several Browns players.
Stefanski said he attended a peaceful protest in Avon last week along with Peter John-Baptiste of the Browns’ communications department. Stefanski had his two young sons with him.
“My position is, I want to make sure I support our players,” Stefanski said. “First things first, I want to make sure I sit down with them and talk. We’ve started the process in that dialogue. But I can’t speak necessarily to the future in that regard. I can just promise you this: We will spend as much time as needed to make sure that we are all on the same page and we are a united front from a player, staff, you name it (standpoint).
“We have spent every meeting addressing this. I have a team meeting at one o’clock. We’re going to continue to talk about it. We brought in some guest speakers to talk about it. One Zoom meeting isn’t going to solve this in any way, shape or form, but I think unified action over the course of time can make a positive impact.
“There has been some frustration among all of our guys. But I promise you this, there has been a very unified message from all of our guys that they want to be part of this change. Simple things like donating; a lot of us are in the position to donate so we gave them some resources and some places to go educate themselves on which charities maybe they should donate to. We gave them some reading materials and some listening material podcast wise in terms of educating because we talk so much about listening. We gave them some things that they can listen to. I encourage them to attend a peaceful protest or attend a rally.”
Stefanski did not have an answer when asked how he will react if some players want to kneel for the national anthem. He said he and the players will discuss it and “make a decision together” — when they can finally get together.
Everything Stefanski said came from his heart. He is a compassionate man. He cared about his players as individuals before what happened last month in Minneapolis. His “attach your name” message to his players and the fact he wants to lead from the front and sincerely says, “I want to promote the message and I don’t want to promote myself” while attaching his name to the cause proves it.
Players will go the extra yard for a coach who cares about them. Everybody wins if Stefanski’s message about social change has the impact he hopes it does and the Browns play better on Sundays.