Standing for justice
College athletes coming together to promote change
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Whether talking to a teammate, close friend or complete stranger, San Jose State football player Drew Jenkins has a go-to question when discussing hot-button topics: “Are you OK with the society you live in?”
“And most of their answers are no, they’re not OK,” the sophomore defensive back said. “So, then you should take it into your own hands and see if something’s going wrong. You should be able to do something about it. You don’t want to just sit on the sidelines, just like you don’t want to sit on the sidelines when you’re in a game.”
A political science major, Jenkins has spent the past several months suiting action to words, joining fellow students across the country in using the platforms they have as athletes to speak out about issues like racism and police brutality. They are helping educate their peers about what it feels like to live as a minority, embracing the responsibility to try to create tangible change.
For many, the push has led to the formation of athlete groups dedicated to inclusion and outreach. In fact, every Pac-12 Conference university now has some form of coalition to support Black and minority athletes — eight of those organizations were established over the past year, some still in the early planning stages, while others have built on what they already had in place.
At San Jose State, Jenkins and teammate Christian Webb are involved in a group called People of Change and led a march last year. Last Friday, they made a presentation to their teammates on Black history and why it is celebrated in February “just to educate them on this month,” Jenkins said.
They also hope to hold an event in the coming weeks to
raise money for further community action, with plans to meet as an entire organization sometime in March if it can be done safely under COVID-19 protocols.
Many of the groups emerged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death last May while he was in the custody of Minneapolis police.
“It’s just somewhere to go and people that you trust and that you feel safe also voicing your opinion with,” said University of California baseball player Darren Baker, whose father, Dusty, manages the Houston Astros. “I think it was something that was long overdue. It’s unfortunate that some events around the country had to happen for this to finally become a thing, but I’m glad it did.”
At Stanford, defensive end Thomas Booker is part of a movement on campus he and others considered essential in the current U.S. climate. The group, called CardinalBLCK, is mostly meeting over video calls for now with members scattered. While still firming up a mission statement, the group aims to be progressive in community outreach.
“We felt like we needed a community that had all of our interests in mind and at heart,” Booker said. “What we envision for the organization to be is, first off, a place that Black Stanford student-athletes can go to and have similar faces and opinions and ideas expressed for them, where as before there wasn’t ever a real formal organization for that. Stanford is a majority-white institution so sometimes it can feel isolating, specifically as a student-athlete and all the stereotypes that come along with that.”
Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir, who is Black, has served in a supporting role for CardinalBLCK. He acknowledges the administration won’t always handle things perfectly and this is a forum for everyone to find ways to be better. Stanford athletes approached him after Floyd’s killing.
“I think the country was hurting,” Muir said. “Certainly our student-athlete population was hurting, so they wanted to come together and talk and vent their frustrations and talk about their own experiences here on campus.”
The moment Jenkins can get everybody together again in person he plans to host a town-hall forum for all San Jose State athletes to tackle social justice issues in a safe space.
He and Webb led a march from campus to City Hall last year, and Jenkins made sure all his teammates who were eligible to vote became registered for the presidential election in November — 102 in all.
Chris Sale has tried not to think about the future as he began working his way back from Tommy John surgery in April.
As virtually the only person at the Red Sox’s training facility in Florida this offseason, it helped keep the 31-year-old left-hander sane as he began the first steps of a recovery program expected to take a minimum of 14 months.
He has had a few hurdles that have slowed the process, including neck injury and a mild bout with COVID-19 last month that required him to quarantine for two weeks. But as Boston’s pitchers and catchers arrived in Fort Myers to join him for their first spring training workout on Thursday, Sale said he’s a full-go and is concentrating on checking off each benchmark of his throwing program as he inches closer to a return.
“I was here by myself the whole summer, it’s nice to get back and have people around and be like a ballplayer again,” Sale said Thursday. “I’ve never been more excited for spring training. … Just, you know, feeling normal again.”
That journey has been a slow one for the seven-time All-Star who is 109-73 in 10 major league seasons and is entering the third season of a $160 million, sixyear contract.
But after helping the Red Sox win the 2018 World Series, he went just 6-11 in 2019 with a 4.40 ERA in 25 starts last year, marking his fewest wins and starts, highest ERA, and the first time he failed to finish among the top six in Cy Young Award voting in any full season as a starter.
He then missed the start of spring training in 2020 with an illness that the team described as a flu that it said turned into pneumonia. The Red Sox later revealed he had a flexor strain near his pitching elbow, and after consultation with doctors Sale decided ligament replacement surgery was the best option.
He eventually underwent the procedure on March 30.
While Sale said he believes there’s no doubt he will be a better pitcher after having the surgery, he isn’t allowing himself to ponder what it will look like yet.
He’s yet to throw off the mound, but is content to be doing the conditioning and limited baseball activities that he’s allowed to at this point.
“I’m not looking at, a month from now, two months from now, even really even a season,” he said. “I can’t. That wouldn’t be fair to myself for my teammates or anybody involved in this process. So, the mound comes when it comes and I just take it a day at a time and I’m doing everything I can to get back out there.”
When Sale does return, he’ll join a pitching staff that looks vastly different. But he says he’s confident the group will be able to find its way with Alex Cora back for his second stint as manager after serving a one-year suspension for his role in the Astros sign-stealing scandal
Cora said Thursday that there is currently isn’t a timeline for Sale’s return.
“I do believe that with his teammates around, the whole group around, the coaches, it’s going to help him. It’s not easy going through a rehab,” Cora said. “I have the utmost respect for Chris. … I’m looking forward to penciling his name into the lineup one of these days.”
Sale said he stayed in contact with Cora throughout last season and expects that even a younger team than the one Cora led in 2018 will benefit from his presence in the clubhouse.
“Camaraderie, trust, passion,” Sale said of the attributes that Cora brings. “You can’t you can’t talk to him about anything and not know that he’s all in.”
Though he won’t be able to contribute until at least May or June, Sale said in the meantime he’s excited to provide whatever leadership he can in the interim.
That includes mentoring pitchers like 24-year-old right-hander Tanner Houch, who went 3-0 in three starts last season and has a delivery which has been compared to Sale’s.
“I’m obviously not playing baseball and I’m making a lot of money to do it. I better bring something to the table,” Sale said.