The South Carolina football team will take Monday off from team activities to focus on issues more important than football, Will Muschamp announced Saturday afternoon.
"I have canceled all team activities for our organization on Monday," Muschamp said. "We will have COVID testing on Monday morning and we will go to campus for a team demonstration -- obviously, you've seen the video, the Jacob Blake situation in Wisconsin, it was a horrific situation -- a team demonstration supporting racial equality and being totally against police brutality."
Earlier this year, the Gamecocks marched from the Governor's Mansion across downtown to the statehouse as part of a peaceful protest following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota.
Earlier this week, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by police in Wisconsin.
Muschamp says the team's leadership group came to him saying they wanted to have the demonstration which is a part of ongoing protests and demonstrations about racial inequality across the country.
"We want to make a statement on our campus," Muschamp said. "We're going to do that. I think some other student-athletes may join us, hopefully. And to remove football and focus a little bit on more important things in life and in our country right now, so I totally support them as far as that's concerned."
Muschamp believes it's more important than ever that he demonstrates great listening skills with his players as the duties of head football coach stretch far beyond just developing players on the field.
"I think now is a really important time to understand how they view things as opposed to how I view things," Muschamp explained. "I always asked players to step into my shoes for a second and it's funny, I had a player tell me this spring, 'Step into my shoes for a second,' And he was saying it in a positive way and I said, 'You're right. You're exactly right. You can always tell me that; I'm going to tell you that.'
"I think open dialogue, being a great listener (is important). My dad would always say coaching is teaching and teaching is the ability to inspire learning and I think that's what we're trying to do right now is learn more about each other, learn what we need to do in situations. Continue to be tough, continue to coach football, but be good listeners right now."
Muschamp was asked if he felt it was proper to have a protest "before the full story is told" regarding the investigation into the Blake shooting.
His answer was unambiguous.
"All I can tell you is what I saw on video and it wasn't right, in my opinion," Muschamp said. "And it wasn't right in our players' opinion and I'm going to stand up for that."
