Activist Athletes

Ariyana Smith, a women’s basketball player at Knox College, lay down on the court before a game — and stayed there for four and a half minutes. Eric Striker, a University of Oklahoma football player, filmed a Snapchat video on his phone that went viral. The University of Missouri’s football team staged a full-on boycott, refusing to practice or play altogether.

These demonstrations, protesting racial injustice, reflect the many ways that college athletes have taken public stands in recent years to send a message or bring about change.

Collegiate athletes — particularly in revenue-generating sports like football and men’s basketball — have a national platform that many of their fellow students do not. They can also leverage the massive amounts of money that pour into college sports each year.

The most recent uptick in athlete activism on campuses began in 2014, in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. That incident inspired some players to call attention to what they saw as systemic racial bias in law enforcement. Later that year, players on a number of basketball teams wore shirts saying “I can’t breathe” before games, a reference to what Eric Garner, another black man, had said when he was put in a chokehold by a New York City police officer. He later died.

In 2015, 32 players on Missouri’s football team wanted to call attention to what they saw as poor institutional responses to racial incidents on the campus. So they refused to play until Timothy Wolfe, then the president of the university system, resigned. The boycott began a few days before a scheduled game against Brigham Young University, and if Missouri had canceled the game, it would have owed BYU $1 million. Mr. Wolfe was also facing growing pressure from student protesters, including one who vowed not to eat until the president resigned. He stepped down two days after the football boycott began.

In 2016, with political polarization and racial tensions running high, athletes’ activism increased. They were inspired largely by Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, who in August started refusing to stand during the national anthem as a means of protesting injustices against black people. Since then, many college football and basketball players, as well as marching-band members, have demonstrated in some way during the anthem.

While many such protests are about race, they touch on other issues as well. The University of Minnesota’s football team decided to boycott its bowl game in December because the university had suspended 10 players for an alleged sexual assault. Team members said they wanted to call attention to what they considered a lack of due process for students accused of misconduct. Players ended the boycott two days later, after Minnesota’s investigation report into the incident was made public. It contained many lurid allegations about the case, in which the alleged victim claimed that she was pressured to have sex with multiple men, including several football players.

Given the widespread opposition to President Trump, experts on sports and social movements say they expect even more athletes to join the fray.

When college officials see such activism and aren’t sure how to handle it, their first call is often to Harry Edwards, a prominent sports sociologist and emeritus professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Lately his phone has been ringing off the hook. “Oftentimes I’ll get a call or query or be invited to a university, and what they want to know is, How we can avoid this?” he says. “They cannot avoid it.”

Mr. Edwards tells college presidents, athletics directors, and coaches that “they should be aware of where their locker rooms are.” Many athletic administrators seem surprised, he said, that their players are talking and tweeting about broader societal issues.

Given their potential influence, it may seem surprising that more college athletes don’t engage in protests. But even as their activism has gained more traction, these students continue to face pressures that might have given some of their peers pause before speaking out.

One factor is simply the way athletics teams operate. “The sports structure in and of itself is not designed to cultivate activism,” says Joseph N. Cooper, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut who studies sports, race, and culture. “It’s really designed to cultivate conformity.” He likens it to the military: “You have leaders who provide orders, you don’t question them, and you’re not thinking critically about what you’re doing.” College players also have a lot on the line — namely, dreams of a professional career. If their activism rubs people the wrong way, that could put their futures at risk.

Athletics officials and coaches stand to lose, too, if angry alumni or fans stop donating or buying tickets for games, or if politicians try to punish their campuses. After six female basketball players at the University of Arkansas knelt during the anthem in November, in protest of police violence against black people, a state lawmaker placed a temporary hold on the institution’s budget request. Then there’s the possibility of reputational damage, which could affect recruiting. So campus officials have tended to be wary of such activism.

Since athletes are at the mercy of their coaches in terms of playing time and scholarships, coaches and team managers exercise a great deal of influence over their players’ choices. If a college team includes several individuals who have come together to organize a protest, “but the coach is saying, No, you’re not kneeling, you’re not walking out, you’re not doing whatever it is — that’s powerful,” says Jennifer McGarry, a professor of educational leadership at Connecticut and a former athletic administrator.

Last year Josh Rosen, the quarterback at the University of California at Los Angeles, publicly criticized a new $280 million deal with the apparel company Under Armour. Mr. Rosen pointed out that while student athletes had effectively made the large contract possible, they would not benefit financially from it because they aren’t paid. “We’re still amateurs, though … Gotta love non-profits. #NCAA” he wrote on Instagram. Mr. Rosen is expected to be a top pick in next year’s NFL draft.

After UCLA’s coach, Jim L. Mora, admonished the player for making a contentious statement that distracted from the university’s announcement, Mr. Rosen deleted the post.

At least one athletics director believes there’s growing support among his colleagues for student activism. “The athletic director of today is a lot more knowledgeable about the right to free expression and the fact that this isn’t the old-school old days anymore,” says Ray Anderson, who serves in that role at Arizona State University.

Mr. Anderson stresses, though, that there’s an important distinction to be drawn between a respectful, peaceful protest and a mean-spirited “intentional interference.”

College officials also have to ponder the question of whether their athletes should be treated primarily as students with First Amendment rights or as athletes who represent the institution, he says. For him there’s no question: They are students first and athletes second. So the job of colleges is to educate them about possible ramifications of speaking out, he says.

In sports, he says, “the memories go long.”

Mr. Rosen, the UCLA quarterback, has had to learn some of those lessons firsthand. In April, he posted an Instagram photo of himself teeing off at a Trump golf course while wearing a bandana that profanely insulted Mr. Trump — which sparked a social-media firestorm and earned another public rebuke from his coach. “With Trump, I’m learning to evolve my message and understand how to convey the substance of it,” he later told Sports Illustrated.

Despite the risks, Mr. Edwards believes the college athletics world will see more activism in the coming months. He specifically predicts more activity on the issue of athlete pay.

“It’s almost inevitable, given the impact on activism that the Trump regime will have,” he says. “Before a Final Four or a bowl championship series with four teams playing, some group of athletes or teams in the locker room is going to say, ‘We’ll take the court or field when someone talks to us about the damn money.’”

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.