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This column focuses on the actions of a very talented HS basketball player named Destiny Adams. She’s a senior star at Manchester Township in NJ, was heavily recruited by a number of top colleges, and has committed to play next year at the Univ. of North Carolina.
Like so many of our student-athletes, Destiny has been affected by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Destiny happens to be African-American. A couple of weeks ago, she decided to make her own statement by wearing a T-shirt during pre-game warm-ups before a HS game. The T-shirt featured the message Black Lives Matter.
Mind you, Destiny wore the shirt during the pre-game warm-ups. She did not wear it during the game – she wore her standard Manchester Township HS uniform.
But her act of wearing her BLM shirt caught the eye of the HS administration — and the local school board decided that while they admired her dedication to the BLM cause, wearing her T-shirt in warm-ups was not the right venue for her to do this. They ruled that if she’s representing the school on the basketball court, then she has to adhere to the school’s rules – that is, she wouldn’t be allowed to wear a Black Lives Matter shirt before a game on the school court. In other words, the school board felt strongly that since she was representing the entire school, it wasn’t right for her to make a personal political statement.
Destiny abided by the school board decision. But not one to be discouraged, she felt that the school board hadn’t really listened to her: that they simply made a ruling. So she went in a different direction...
Read more on this story at askcoachwolff.com.