What Dolphins are discussing about fans at games. And team starts ambitious meal program
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Monday that having fans at Miami Dolphins games remains a possibility this fall in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and he has spoken with the team about having what would equate to as many as 13,000 fans for home games at Hard Rock Stadium.
“I believe we’ll have football here this fall,” Gimenez said at Hard Rock Stadium, on the first day of the Dolphins’ ambitious one-year, $4 million project to deliver hundreds of thousands of meals to those in need. “We can work with the Dolphins and the NFL to have football here. Whether there are going to be fans is another story.
“Even in terms of fans, it’s a big place and you have the ability to stay away from each other. Fifteen percent capacity, 20 percent capacity. We’ve had conversations with the Dolphins.”
Hard Rock Stadium holds 65,326 fans; 20 percent capacity would be roughly 13,000.
In accordance with a league rule limiting team employee discussion on the matter, Dolphins president Tom Garfinkel declined to discuss if he expects training camp to start on time in the final week of July — or anything regarding the timing of the season — but said:
“It will be a great day when we get on the field and play football again. The country needs those elements. Talking to some of the players, they can’t wait to get on the field.
“If we can do it safely, I would expect us to be playing. If we can have fans safety, I would expect us to have fans. But that will be up to a lot of other people, not me.”
Garfinkel, general manager Chris Grier and coach Brian Flores were among numerous Dolphins officials distributing meals in the stadium’s parking lot on Monday — something the team will do six days a week for the next year. Garfinkel said this was owner Stephen Ross’ idea.
“Steve said to me, ‘Tom, race relations in this country are not good right now. Unemployment is at an all-time high. Now is the opportunity to help people. Let’s try to put together a program to help people in our own backyard in Miami Gardens.’”
The Dolphins will distribute at least 1,000 meals on stadium grounds every weekday during the next year and another 1,000 on Sundays in conjunction with local restaurants and church groups.
“We have committed to doing this at least a year,” Garfinkel said. “We don’t think this problem is going away.”
In general terms, Garfinkel also addressed the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, an incident that resulted in the arrest of a Minneapolis police officer and several nights of protest and demonstrations across the country.
Garkfinkel said the video of an officer pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck “is like watching pure evil. What we’re looking at is completely unacceptable. We need love and empathy and compassion. That’s how we’re going to get through this until we get to a place where we have equality, and justice and truth is equal for everybody. That’s what anybody who’s a reasonable person wants. All those videos did was show us what’s been happening for a long time.
“It’s time for change. Been time for change for a long time.”
The Dolphins frequently hold community events with police, members of the community and the team’s players and staffers.
“Hopefully they’re having a big impact,” Garfinkel said. “We have done a lot of things to try to bring law enforcement together with people in the community. Transparency, communication, when you get people to get to know each other personally and they have conversations, it bridges a lot of gaps, when we bring law enforcement together with people they don’t normally talk to.
“... This is about getting people together. There is an evil element in our country [regardless]. Watching those videos is like watching pure evil. But there’s a lot of good people too. We’ve got to get good people together, communicating, talking to each other, working together.”
Meanwhile, Garfinkel said Ross has some “plans coming” with his RISE foundation, a national nonprofit that educates and empowers the sports community to eliminate racial discrimination, champion social justice and improve race relations.
“RISE is working on some things right now,” Garfinkel said. “It’s not my place to talk about them. The initiative started by Steve was to use sports as a catalyst to try to fight racism.
“There’s not a lot of racism on that football field. They are people [working] as brothers, as teammates. We need to translate that back into our society.”
Flores did not take questions but said: “I feel unbelievably blessed and honored to be able to be here to lend a hand and help a lot of the people who are struggling not only here in South Florida but really across the world.
“Leadership is about service. To have a platform and opportunity to serve the community, players, coaches, my family, the children of South Florida and everywhere, I don’t take that lightly....
“There’s leaders everywhere — in our home, our schools, whether it’s parents, coaches, if we can all take an opportunity we will bring people together and ultimately will create some change. What we’re doing to feed families of South Florida is incredible. I’m honored to be a part of that.”
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 10:03 AM.
