MANSFIELD, Conn. — The future of college sports remains in limbo but we know when UConn basketball does return to the court they will have Black Lives Matter patches on their jerseys. The Big East announcing all men’s and women’s basketball teams in the conference will have BLM patches on their uniforms this season.
The idea for the patches was introduced by Coaches for Action, a group of 21 minority coaches within the Big East. The group’s mission to educate and bring awareness to social injustices is already off to a solid start.
“The first thing for us is that we wanted to bring awareness to the fact that this stuff is going on,” said Kimani Young, UConn men’s basketball assistant coach. “We decided we’re going to be a part of change and not just sit back to let someone else do it.”
Young helped found the group in its early stages along with Ivan Thomas from Providence College, Villanova’s Kyle Neptune, and Dwayne Killings at Marquette.
The death of George Floyd back in May sparked a series of phone calls between Young and his fellow assistant coaches as they tried to digest what they were seeing.
“I lived in Minneapolis for five years,” said Young “I walked on those same street with my children. I loved living there. I never thought something like that would happen in a place like Minneapolis. So if that can happen there, it can happen anywhere. It can happen to anyone of us or any of our children.”
Now that the group has gotten the Big East’s full support they are looking to continue utilizing the platform they have to spread their message.
“We’re going to host voting campaigns on all the Big East campuses,” said Young. “We want to create voter awareness. We’re registering all our players and now we want get students on our campus registered all across the Big East.”
Watch the full interview below:
For more information on Coaches for Action click here.