Podcast: Miami coaches react to George Floyd killing. And the latest COVID-19 return plan
With sports still mostly away because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the weekend protests about the police killing of George Floyd and racial injustice grabbed hold of the nation’s attention in a series of protests not seen in decades.
Virtually every major city across the United States, including Miami, staged some sort of protest. Some athletes and coaches joined in. Others weighed in from home.
One of the first Miami Hurricanes coaches to come out strongly was offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee, who first made a forceful public statement after two civilians hunted down and killed Ahmaud Arbery last month in Georgia. On a new episode of the Eye on the U podcast, David Wilson and Susan Miller Degnan, the Miami Herald’s Hurricanes beat writer, discuss the protests, why they’re important to talk about on a sports podcast and all the different ways Miami coaches are reacting.
In the second half of the episode, Wilson and Degnan dive into the latest plans to get athletes back on campuses amid the coronavirus outbreak. It’s another multifaceted discussion about what good and bad could come out of players returning to campus in June, and what it will mean for the possibility of playing games — with or without fans in attendance — in the fall.
The Hurricanes pose a potentially interesting test case because of how many players live within a three-county radius and how many have already been working out with each other while at home. No matter what, it’s an important step in the right direction as Miami hopes to have the team back on campus by the end of July to get ready for games as early as the end of the summer.
As always, the biggest thing we know is we still don’t know everything, but we do our best to figure out what the next few weeks could look like in Coral Gables.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 11:46 AM.
