TAMPA, Fla.– Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians continued a back-and-forth with DeMaurice Smith on Friday after the NFLPA executive director stated Arians was “woefully misinformed about the history of protest.”
After George Floyd was killed earlier this summer season, Arians remembered the race riots in York, Pennsylvania, in 1968 and 1969, when dozens of individuals were hurt and two individuals were killed. Arians was 16 at the time and recalled seeing the National Guard going up and down his street.
” Protesting doesnt do crap, in my viewpoint,” stated Arians on Thursday, instead imploring Bucs gamers to take action. “Ive been seeing it because 1968.”
2 RelatedSmith posted a tweet later Thursday with a picture of former U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who passed away in July.
” Everyone is entitled to their viewpoint, however its clear he is woefully misinformed about the history of demonstration both within sports and in America,” Smiths tweet said.
On Friday, 67-year-old Arians took offense to Smiths post.
” Yeah, I have a history,” Arians stated. “It might be a little bit longer than his.”
As a quarterback at Virginia Tech, Arians was the first white player to space with a Black colleague– James Barber, one of two Black gamers on the team, and dad of Ronde and Tiki Barber– and he has long credited his childhood in a varied community for his progressive positions on racial problems.
Arians is also the only existing NFL coach with a Black offensive coordinator, defensive organizer, special-teams organizer and run game coordinator/assistant head coach.
Arians told his gamers that he d support them if they selected to miss out on or move a practice if they might create a strategy to produce change, including that the Bucs player-led social justice committee was to fulfill this week to discuss ideas.
