‘It’s been intense’
Football mom has built a movement for Minnesota kids to play sports
MINNEAPOLIS — Whether using her laptop inside her Dassel, Minn., home or her voice outside the governor’s residence in St. Paul, footballmom-turned-activist Dawn Gillman has emerged as the face of a growing movement eager to restore high school athletes’ seasons.
That movement has blossomed though social media as Let Them Play Minnesota, a website and robust Facebook group modeled on efforts used in other states. The group’s controversial message is unwavering: Government agencies and state officials should reconsider coronavirus guidelines and allow high school and youth sports to proceed.
Gillman, whose sons, Eli and Monte, play football for Dassel-cokato, helped create Let Them Play Minnesota in September, aiming to restore high school football and volleyball seasons that originally had been delayed until March 2021. It quickly became an outlet for concerned parents, supportive coaches, fans and athletes to air frustrations and deliver a unified voice in support of youth sports.
More than 23,000 people have joined the Facebook group, with Gillman and a group of five sports moms serving as administrators posting updates.
After the football and volleyball seasons were started in late September, Let Them Play Minnesota turned its focus to allowing more fans at fall sports, and later, restoring state tournaments. Group members spoke up again in November when Gov. Tim Walz enacted a four-week pause and delayed the start of the winter sports season. They feared for the mental health of kids who they felt were being unfairly hurt despite being less susceptible to the virus.
Let Them Play Minnesota, a nonprofit organization, draws financial support from businesses and donations from families to fund its message through demonstrations, petitions and lawsuits.
“We have remained a grassroots movement with the intention to support forward progress for opening of youth sports and activities,” Gillman said. “We also support schools and businesses being opened safely. Our hope is to have a collective voice to support the science and data. Why harm our kids when shutting down sports is detrimental to the mental and physical well-being of the next generation?”
Promoting those concerns in a respectful manner is a priority for Gillman, a former athlete for DasselCokato. Her profile has helped her to speak with members of Gov. Walz’s team as well as Minnesota State High School League Executive Director Erich Martens.
Gillman, 47, said she believes COVID-19 is real; the virus made its way through her household this fall. She said she wears a mask when required. And she supports protecting the vulnerable from COVID-19 while also believing data support reopening schools and permitting sports — with restrictions.
Her views and those of Let Them Play Minnesota generate concern from public health officials and others who see youth sports as contributing to community spread of the virus.
Ryan Demmer, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, said, “Kids most definitely get infected and they most definitely transmit. And that’s why having them out in these types of activities really helps to link up the communities and drive community transmission. I really believe that having kids in sports and school in the fall was not the only reason we are really out of control right now, but it is a contributing factor.”
**** Gillman and her sons flew to Florida this week for Eli and Monte to showcase themselves as college football prospects in an event called “The Show” at IMG Academy in Bradenton.
Word reached her Monday of the Minnesota Department of Health’s latest guidelines for winter sports, which include athletes wearing masks throughout practices and competitions. Gillman was flabbergasted.
“The Minnesota Department of Health just threw this out there with no data to support it,” Gillman said.
As of Monday, 65% of the 5,160 deaths from COVID-19 in Minnesota have occurred in long-term care communities, state records show.
In the 15- to 19-year-old age group, zero deaths have been reported from 31,957 cases. But no amount of data she cites has made Gillman immune to criticism.
“I’ve lost a lot of friendships and relationships because I may view things a little differently,” Gillman said. “It’s been intense. I’ve had parents say, ‘Dawn, how dare you? My child is fine with staying home as long as we can spare another life.’ But we can’t know that we are the people that are responsible for other people’s lives, other than our own. And that’s not to sound callous because I have wrestled with this.”
**** Gillman said her husband and their three children, who were adopted, all had COVID-19 this fall. They felt minor symptoms but recovered. She knows other families have not been so fortunate. And she empathizes with those who fear for their children.
Eli and Monte Gillman are young Black men more concerned about their surroundings following the death in May of George Floyd.
“Eli said something that made me sad and fearful when he said, ‘This is going to make it harder for me being Black when I get pulled over,’ “Gillman said. “And he gets worried about Monte because he could see Monte running when he gets scared instead of listening.”
Eli, a junior, was named all-area football player of the year by the Delano Herald Journal, while Monte showed promise as a ninth-grader on the Dassel-cokato varsity team. Dawn Gillman doesn’t want local pandemicrelated restrictions to hamper the high school experience or the college athletics potential of her sons or any other high school student-athlete.
Eli said that initially, his mother’s place in the public eye felt a little embarrassing. His feelings changed when he saw what he believed was Let Them Play Minnesota fostering real change.
“I like how she isn’t aggressively attacking anyone, she just trying to find a solution,” Eli said. “My friends will say, ‘Your mom is going to be the governor.’ “
****
Just how much Let Them Play Minnesota has moved the needle is unclear. Walz has rarely if ever mentioned the group publicly. Martens would not comment for this story. But Gillman and her group plan to keep a dialogue going with both men and their teams whenever possible.
“I think we’ve found such success with
Dawn Gillman (above), who has become the face of the Letthem Play Minnesota, stood for a portrait with her sons Eli, 17 (left), and Monte, 15, both three-sport athletes.
Blake, she interviewed her sister Nneka Ogwumike, who is the president of the WNBA players association, and other members of the executive committee about the decision. It was the opening segment.
“Having the mic felt like I was still in the game,” Ogwumike said, “because what mattered the most to WNBA players at that time was actually everything that we were doing [off the court] and for people to actually hear us out and see us.”
Becoming activists is “part of our [generation’s] calling,” she said, especially for athletes who spoke out for racial justice following George Floyd’s death in May. She was one of the original members of Lebron James’ More Than a Vote organization, bringing the WNBA’S influence to the star-studded group that included personalities from the NBA, NFL and entertainment industry. Ogwumike spoke on MSNBC and ABC about the organization’s mission to combat voter suppression and narrated a call-to-action video to recruit volunteers to work the polls on election day. Poll workers typically have been older people, but they were encouraged to stay home because of health risks with the coronavirus outbreak. The group recruited more than 42,000 poll workers. Ogwumike was one of them.
“It struck home that if I’m voicing this piece, I can’t just talk about it,” she said. “I might as well just be about it.”
So Ogwumike requested a rare day off from work at ESPN, scrambling from L.A. on Monday, when she boarded a 6 p.m. flight after work, to Houston, where she arrived at Nneka’s house at 1 a.m.
local time Tuesday. The sisters reported to the Toyota Center at 6 a.m. for their nine-hour shift.
Ogwumike helped nervous firsttime voters. She gave an “I voted” sticker to a smiling young child whose single mother voted. She spoke Spanish with voters who needed help. That evening, she watched the first wave of the results with her parents. At 6 a.m. Wednesday, she was back on a plane to L.A.
“This honestly felt like a dream,” Ogwumike said. “A surreal dream.”
Ogwumike was back on the radio Wednesday afternoon with her regularly scheduled show. The former Stanford All-american has always found a way to fit in community efforts alongside work.
“Chiney’s always been a big-pic
ture person,” said Tara Vanderveer, head coach of Stanford’s women’s basketball team.
Along with winning four consecutive conference championships and advancing to three Final Fours at Stanford, Ogwumike studied abroad for one quarter. After fulfilling a requirement for the international relations major by interning with Nigeria’s minister of petroleum, she volunteered with a nonprofit that raised $30,000 to build a basketball court to provide more opportunities for girls in sports.
“She’s not about Chiney,” Vanderveer said. “Whether it was [majoring in] international relations or working with Dr. Condoleezza Rice as her advisor, she’s always been a part of the big world.”
Ogwumike’s worlds now meet
in Los Angeles, where she moved permanently early this year. She wanted the move to help balance her media and basketball lives. As she prepares to return to the court next season, Ogwumike intends to keep that balance, hoping to work out a creative solution with ESPN to maintain the radio show.
“The plan is to keep pushing boundaries,” Ogwumike said.
The former WNBA rookie of the year is still chasing that elusive WNBA championship. From her downtown apartment, Ogwumike saw L.A. celebrate two major championships in October. She watched fireworks light up the night sky for the Lakers, then 16 days later, saw them for the Dodgers.
She wants to help make the next celebration in honor of the Sparks.