This past Sunday, I was able to talk to Arizona State offensive lineman Cody Shear about the #WeAreUnited movement among Pac-12 athletes to get better protections, benefits, and overall recognition in the context of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests. You can listen to the full conversation here, but I am going to excerpt different portions of Shear’s insights on various issues so that they can be laid out in print.
You can judge for yourself.
Let’s start with the big picture. I gave Cody Shear a chance to offer some general remarks on how the #WeAreUnited movement came into being:
“The We Are United campaign is really something which has resonated, and something players have talked about doing for a long time now. We have been in communication with NFL players, former college players who have all agreed they’re extremely supportive of the movement… It’s been a topic a lot of past players have thought about but maybe not had the platform or opportunity to step forward and make those demands or questions to the conference…
“With everything that’s been going on as far as the pandemic and the racial injustice issues, unfortunately it took some crazy events like that in order for the players to feel they had the platform to raise their voice and put their best foot forward.”
After roughly 25 minutes of conversation, I asked Shear if there was anything else he wanted to add, in order to make sure his points of emphasis were fully conveyed. This is what he said:
“I think it’s really important the audience knows that this has nothing to do with the coaches. I think a lot of people have a pretty good grasp of that and understand that, but I think some people are getting it twisted, saying we’re trying to take money away from other sports programs when we talk about the revenue share, or take money away from coaches. That has nothing to do with it — this is directly between the players and the Pac-12. We fully support our universities and our coaches. We’re glad in most cases we have their support as well. That’s basically what I want to end this with.”