The Auburn athletic director spoke on the conversations he has had with student-athlete surrounding social justice issues.
Times right now for any athletic director in the country are going to be tough as the COVID-19 pandemic has quickly cut into the revenue that departments are used to receiving during the year and many social justice issues are coming to the forefront of conversations, especially with student-athletes.
On Friday, Auburn athletic director Allen Greene spoke on the Tiger Talk podcast about some of the challenges he has faced over the past several months and said that, as a Black man, he has shared some of his own experiences with concerned members of the Tigers.
“The conversations have been great,” Greene said. “They have been emotional. They have provided a clearing of a path for us to go down a journey we, these young people in particular, have never had to go down before. That warms my heart to be at a moment in time in our country where we can have such a profound impact on the young people we serve.
“I try to share with them that in these moments we have an opportunity to make a difference. The chances for us to make a difference in the country and the world may not be all that great, but we can make a difference here on our soil with our people. Our energies will be focused on making change locally. How can we help people understand that the walk you walk is different than the walk I walk, and it’s the same road. It’s allowing people to listen as we talk about it and learn. Not that anybody even has to agree as long as you can see someone else’s perspective.”
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Greene said that about a month and a half ago he had a “raw conversation” with many student-athletes about what is happening in the country right now.
I have a pretty good appreciation of what our black student-athletes are going through. I’ve been through very similar situations,” he said. “What I appreciated was our white student-athletes who spoke up about their disapproval of the injustices that are occurring, their recognition of the injustices that are occurring and the heavy hearts that they have in seeing their brothers and sisters, their teammates, their peers have to go through such fear, such anxiety, such emotional torture.”
Here is everything else important that the athletic director had to say:
On uncomfortable conversations
“What we have tried to espouse is being uncomfortable is OK. Being defensive is not. How do we push the boundaries of our comfort level. We’ve had department-wide Zoom calls about race. We have realize that whether we are left, right, red, blue, black, white, we are shaped by our experiences and we are shaped by the people we surround ourselves with. We are shaped by the news that we watch. We are shaped by the music we listen to. We are shaped by our Twitter feeds and Instagram.
“How can we remove some filters and start to broaden our awareness? I’m proud of the members of our department who have really leaned into the discussion on race.”
On the challenges he is facing
“One of the bigger challenge is we have such a large ecosystem in our industry. We’re not professional sports, where we are focused on one sport and a small number of athletes. We (at Auburn) are 550 student-athletes, 300 staff members, 15 head coaches, 21 different sports. And we reside under the umbrella of a larger campus entity and we reside in the city of Auburn and the state of Alabama and then working with the Southeastern Conference. There are a lot of paces we have to go through to try to manage all the different things that are happening. That takes a lot of time and a lot of communication. It takes a lot of mental energy.
“Each day is filled with a number of Zooms communicating with our coaches, university staff, executive leadership, SEC leadership, contacting colleagues across the country to try to figure out what they are doing. We are all trying to make judgment calls. I would say we are thankful and blessed by Commissioner (Greg) Sankey and his leadership and Dr. (Jay) Gogue and his leadership. We are very fortunate here at Auburn.”
On playing fall sports
“It might not seem like it, but we’ve made a significant amount of progress to get those sports in position to play. Football, obviously, is the largest domino. It’s the engine that drives our departments in so many different ways. Soccer starts before football season in a traditional academic year. We delayed volleyball and cross country and soccer so we could get football in a position where we felt comfortable.
“We are still working through some things, but we are in a much better position than we were a month or even two months ago. Our student-athletes want to compete, and we want them to compete. We know they’ve worked incredibly hard.”
On financial impact of COVID-19 pandemic
We’ve known there was going to be a financial impact. With each decision that is made, there is a little bit more of a clear picture. It’s important that people remember that football revenue funds about 80 percent of our operation – about $120 million. Any alteration to that starts to eat away.
“We still want to provide our student-athletes a unique and dynamic experience. In order to do that, we still need to get them from Point A to Point B. We still need to feed them. We still need to give them scholarships. We still need to take care of their mental health issues and their physical issues. And we still need to train and compare for competition.”
On having students at season opener
“As things began to unfold and we kind of got closer to the decision, we collectively as an institution came together and said what is best for Auburn. What is best for us is recognizing those who went to Auburn recognize how special that football game experience was to them as a student. Those who went to Auburn know they have many more years of enjoying time in Jordan-Hare Stadium on a Saturday.
“Our young people are here for a moment in time. That four years goes by awfully fast. Let’s make sure they get that experience, that they remember that experience. Many of them have been on this journey for several years just to get to the Plains so they can have their shakers in the stands and cheer on their peers on the football field. We thought it was really important for us to do that. We know we are an outlier in the country, and we are completely fine with that.”
