ROSEMONT, Ill. –– They may have been protesting for their sons to play football during a worldwide pandemic, but the harm caused by COVID-19 was not lost on the outspoken faction of Big Ten parents gathered near the conference headquarters Friday.
Randy Wade, father of Ohio State cornerback Shaun Wade, spearheaded the movement on social media, and made a point to recognize the lives lost to the virus with his first words upon taking center stage at the protest.
“I want to have a moment of silence, 17 seconds for the 170,000 people that died from the coronavirus,” Wade said, before he and the group of 25 or so Big Ten family members bowed their heads.
The group, consisting of primarily Ohio State and Iowa family members, though it also included some from Illinois and Wisconsin, called for transparency from Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, even if the protest doesn’t result in a fall football season.
But the cause was not without criticism.
On Thursday, USA Today’s Christine Brennan published an article entitled “Even in face of a deadly pandemic, Big Ten parents set to do unthinkable — protest for return of fall football.” In it, Brennan refers to Wade several times.
“Given a choice between watching their kid play a game, albeit one in which some will make a lot of money someday, and making sure he is as safe and healthy as he can be, they are not choosing the latter,” Brennan wrote.
Wade responded on Twitter Thursday, saying that Brennan “didn’t report anything I said,” but the critique likely fueled his efforts to make it clear that he and other parents understand the severity of the virus on Friday.
“A lot of people think that we’re parents, we’re like cavemen or something. So the first thing I want to do, we understand there’s a pandemic,” Wade said. “We understand that 2020 is one of the roughest years since I’ve been alive.”
Wade said he wants the Big Ten to establish the proper safety protocols, but said from “Pop Warner to pros,” there has always been health risks involved with putting his child on the football field.
“The kids go out there and kneel before the game,” Wade said. “They don’t go out there and kneel to say, ‘Let’s beat Iowa.’ They don’t go out there to say, ‘Let’s beat Ohio State.’ They go out there to kneel because they’re praying to come through the game safe, because people get hurt –– critically injured –– all the time."
Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields and center Josh Myers have been vocal in recent media appearances that many players feel safer at team facilities while undergoing frequent COVID-19 testing than they would on their own, without a season.
Dornaj Davis, the father of Wisconsin running back Julius Davis, said Friday that his son contracted the virus at home with friends, and not at a training facility in Madison.
“They’re constantly getting tested, they’re constantly being able to recognize if something is going on with them,” Davis said. “So they’re not spreading it as much as if they’re not playing or socializing with the classmates and the outside world.”
Iowa offensive lineman Mark Kallenberger’s father, Jay Kallenberger, said Friday that the parents are not arguing that COVID-19 isn’t a “real virus,” but said it is something everyone will have to learn to live with while it remains pervasive in society.
Kallenberger said if players, including his son, did contract the virus, they would have a “better chance of bouncing back a heck of a lot quicker than I do at the age of 54.”
The risks have been acknowledged, but Wade asserts that if anyone thinks they are looking out for the players more than their own parents, they are wrong.
“Parents have the best interests for the kids in mind,” Wade said. “Period. Point blank. Somebody can say that they love them, but you don’t love a person as much as a parent does. I’m just a dad, and I just want to spark the match of conversation so we can start.”
