Fallout from the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin continues to spill into the sports world, with an unprecedented day of boycotts Wednesday in multiple professional leagues.
Among them, the WNBA, where Minnesota Lynx head coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve says she fully supports her players.
"The depth of my pain for thems is far less than their own depth of pain for what they go through daily in their families," Reeve said. "And so, I know how I'm feeling, so I can't I can't even imagine. I'm getting up today, waking up, and getting out of bed today is hard. It's just difficult situation. WNBA players, NBA players, Major League Baseball players, they understand the cost. They hear what people are saying. They hear the dangers of actions as meaningful as the boycott. They understand it. And so for me, I try to explain to people, if they understand that perhaps there's loss of money, there's a threat of people not returning to watch them. If they understand all that, and they're still willing to make the sacrifice, doesn't that explain what's happening here?"
Coach Reeve speaking with WCCO's Cory Hepola Thursday, passionately supported her player's right to take a stand for what they believe in.
"We're talking about life and death and police brutality," Reeve said. And you can see, it's all out there for us now with cell phones and videos and social media. We're seeing it now. This was all going on before, but now we're seeing it. The outrage of watching a black man being held by his shirt and then being shot seven times and then also to see a white man wielding a knife leads to a different result. So the fear for your life as an officer changes when it's a black man."
Reeve says that taking this stand is definitely a risk by athletes, and that shouldn't be overlooked."It's hard for athletes. They work hard at their craft, they're really good. Now they're professionals, make a lot of money doing this and have a platform. And so having a platform comes with responsibility."
The Lynx and Reeve have a history of standing up for social justice issues. In 2016, four Minneapolis officers working as independent contractors walked off their jobs at a Lynx game after players wore shirts with the phrase Black Lives Matter on them. The players spoke out against violence before the game, condemning violent acts against two black men as well as the killing of five Dallas police officers.
Then, after the 2018 season, star player Maya Moore left the team to focus on social justice issues, eventually working to get an innocent man released from a 50-year prison sentence. Reeve said Thursday with Cory Hepola that Moore changed during her time with the team."Maya Moore talked about in the beginning, before she immersed herself into criminal justice reform, she admits that she thought that if a person was in jail it was because they did something wrong. That's I think is the starting point. I will say this for white people that say, well don't resist and nothing will happen. But that's not true."
Currently, the NBA appears set to resume its playoffs by Friday or Saturday after reports that some teams, including LeBron James' LA Laker, would boycott the rest of the playoff season.
Several NFL teams have canceled practice Thursday. In a statement, the Vikings say they are practicing following an emotional two-hour meeting. Major League Baseball is also seeing some games postponed, though the finale of the Twins series in Cleveland is still on as planned Thursday night.