Local and Olympic athletes, officials take on #takeaknee after Trump weighs in and fuels protests

From NFL fields to the slopes of Park City and beyond, athletes with local ties have participated in and are speaking up about President Donald Trump’s criticisms of national anthem protests.

At a rally in Alabama last Friday, Trump called for NFL team owners to fire players for taking a knee during the national anthem and for fans to leave stadiums when they see players protesting, calling the demonsrators an epithet in the process.

“His comments were pretty offensive and not something that a President should’ve said,” new Utah Jazz wingman Thabo Sefolosha said Monday.

Added Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey: “We reject the premise that if you don’t stand for the national anthem, you’re not patriotic.”

On Sunday as players around the NFL knelt, locked arms or stayed in their locker rooms altogether during the anthem, former Utes, Cougars, Aggies and Thunderbirds players approached the pregame ritual differently.

Former Utah offensive tackle and current Denver Broncos rookie Garett Bolles stood for the anthem with his right hand over his heart while placing his left hand in solidarity on the shoulder of linebacker Von Miller.

Former BYU linebacker Kyle Van Noy stood near his kneeling New England Patriots teammates with his right hand over his heart and left hand tucked behind his back.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans — whose rosters feature former Utah State linebacker Bobby Wagner, former Southern Utah cornerback LeShaun Sims, former Utah cornerback Brian Allen and former Utah cornerback Brice McCain — largely remained in their respective locker rooms during the anthem.

Several Oakland Raiders players with local ties protested the anthem and spoke about Trump’s comments in the locker room after the team’s loss to Washington.

Pregame, former Southern Utah linebacker James Cowser and former Utah cornerbacks Sean Smith and Keith McGill sat on the bench, interlocking their arms with teammates during the anthem.

Postgame, Cowser said he sat to support his teammates, according to video from The Mercury News.

“There’s some that feel there are problems and I’m just trying to support them because I get to hear their true concerns,” he said. “It’s just all about supporting the people who feel like there’s really something wrong and just trying to give them a voice.”

Former Utah State offensive lineman and Raiders left tackle Donald Penn panned Trump’s criticisms and said the President should be focusing on disaster relief in recently hurricane ravaged Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico.

“He’s worried about us doing a silent, peaceful protest when the people in Charlottesville had all this, he didn’t call them sons of b*****, he didn’t call them a******,” Penn said.

Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham had no comment and “no thoughts” on NFL players kneeling over the weekend.

Both Utah and BYU players are usually off the field and in the locker room, at home anyway, when the anthem plays, a common practice in the NCAA.

However, Utah sophomore running back Zack Moss said “it‘s pretty good” that NFL players are taking a stand by kneeling down.

He downplayed the likelihood of seeing a display like that at the collegiate level.

“In the NFL, you have more individuals that can do a lot of things so I don‘t really think in college you’ll see that happen, but I mean it’s football,” Moss said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you see something.”

At the 2017 Team USA Olympic Summit in Park City on Monday, athletes and officials addressed the anthem protests and the intersection of patriotism and politics.

United States Olympic Committee CEO, Scott Blackmun, said the organization supports freedom of speech in wake of the rise of protests in sport.

“The athletes that you see protesting are protesting because they love their country, not because they don’t,” Blackmun said. “We fully support the right of our athletes and everybody else to express themselves. [As for] the Olympic Games themselves, there’s a prohibition on all forms of demonstrations, political or otherwise. That applies no matter what side of the issue you’re taking, no matter where you’re from. We have a little bit of state of play when it comes to the Olympic Games, but we certainly recognize the importance of athletes being able to express themselves.”

Aja Evans, a 2014 bronze medalist in women’s bobsled, trains every summer with NFL athletes. Her brother, Fred, is a former defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. Evans, who hails from the south side of Chicago, commended various NFL teams and athletes for expressing their voice regarding the racial injustices in America.

“I’m a very passionate person,” Evans said. “They use their platform to speak on issues like racism, police brutality, certain injustice and I think I resonate with that coming from Chicago and experiencing so many, you know, injustices period. I think that my way of showing my stance is to continue to try and be a positive influence for my city, for my country, and I’m representing Team USA the best way I can and I feel like by trying to represent them in a positive light and really.”

Asked if she’d consider going to the White House should she medal at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, Evans said she’s still undecided.

“[President Trump has] talked about a lot of stuff and a lot of people,” she said. “I think at this point now, you kind of just brush it off. He’s Twitterfingers.”

Fellow bobsled athlete, Kehri Jones, said the protests by NFL athletes and stances from the likes of Steph Curry and LeBron James, “sends a very profound message that what’s going on is not OK.”

Jones, whose father is a serviceman set to deploy overseas in the coming weeks, said the thought of making a public stance has crossed her mind entering this World Cup season.

“We’re not very big-time athletes. We don’t get a lot of press,” she said. “But it is something that I feel strongly about about the social injustices and I don’t agree with it. it’s a delicate balance representing the United States and wanting to represent your country well, but also wanting to let people know what’s going on.”

Elana Meyers Taylor, a Sochi 2014 silver medalist in bobsledding, said Olympic athletes are “going to stand for more than just sticking to sports.”

“All of us, especially on Team USA, are so accomplished not only in sports but in the academic realms and other fields, so it’s a blessing and an opportunity to have a platform to impact social change,” Meyers Taylor said. “If we can make the world a better place, we’re going to do it.”

Four-time alpine skiing Olympian Julia Mancuso, who won gold in Turin 2006, said she “looks up” to athletes that stand for what they believe in and that she takes pride in the right to free speech as an American.

I like to think of us all as very patriotic and athletes that are just really proud to be representing Team USA at the Olympics,” she said.

A pair of Olympic hopefuls, however, said they won’t consider anything but standing for the anthem.

Jordan Greenway, a hockey player at Boston University said he always stands for the anthem and “always will.” Troy Terry, a PyeongChang 2018 hopeful, who plays collegiately for the University of Denver, agreed.

“I definitely think those people are entitled to their opinions and can express them how they feel,” said Terry, “but you won’t see me taking a knee during the national anthem or anything like that, especially at an event like the Olympics.”

Real Salt Lake midfielder Jordan Allen spent time at the Utah State Capitol in March — asking Utah congressional representatives about the intricacies of the legislature.

Allen, in the beginning of RSL’s season, placed his right hand over his heart and balled his left hand “tightly into a fist, held out by his side,” according to a Tribune article from March 10, as a silent statement acknowledging the nation’s civil unrest.

Allen is no stranger to criticism of Trump, tweeting out a strongly worded condemnation of the new president after his election in November 2016.

After former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the tidal wave of social protest, Allen considered following suit to take a knee.

“I thought it was a type of protest that didn’t harm anybody, shed light on the issue that he wanted to shed light on and was successful,” Allen said. “Maybe if I was somewhere else, maybe I would’ve taken part in that. But being in Utah, I decided to take part in a different way, and I still do.”

— Reporters Tony Jones, Aaron Falk, Christopher Kamrani and Lynn Worthy contributed to this story.