GAMBIER — After having the opportunity to see an open forum meeting ran by colleagues at the College of San Mateo Wednesday night, Kenyon College football coaches James Rosenbury and Andy Allison hope to continue a dialogue closer to home.
Rosenbury and Allison sat in on a Zoom meeting called “The Huddle Up” Wednesday night, set up by the football coaches at San Mateo College.
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Photo courtesy of Kenyon athletic department Kenyon assistant football coach Andy Allison, pictured in this file photo on the sideline of a game between the Lords and Wooster on Oct. 26, 2019, attended a meeting called “The Huddle Up” with head coach James Rosenbury, right photo, on Wednesday night. The meeting, which was about race relations in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, was held by the College of San Mateo’s football program. Allison and Rosenbury hope to include the team in similar conversations with local leaders in the future.
“I think things that needed to be said, needed to be heard by everyone,” said Rosenbury, who is entering his second season as the Lords’ head coach. “My biggest takeaway from all of it was … we need to do a better job of recruiting men of color, specifically African-American men because education is power and we have to give these young, specifically black men, the opportunity to change the world.”
Rosenbury said he sent an email to his players after Floyd’s death.
“The first thing I did was reach out to our African-American student athletes,” he said. “I called them and I told them that I have no idea how you are feeling or what you’re going through, but I’m here to talk and I’m here to support in any way that you need me to. I wanted to let them know that they weren’t alone and that I was here for them.”
The Kenyon athletic department released a statement Thursday.
“We want to make it clear, in a unified voice, that inequality, hatred and racism are not tolerated at Kenyon,” it read. “We stand in harmony as a department, as a campus, as a conference and, most importantly, as human beings who oppose these injustices. We are committed to the core values that drive our daily mission and we pledge to utilize them for the growth and advancement of society.”
How did Kenyon get involved with “The Huddle Up”? Allison, an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Kenyon, is friends with his counterpart at San Mateo, Mike Dovenberg, ever since the two were at college together at the University of Minnesota.
“We thought it would be a great opportunity to have some (our) questions answered — we had hoped,” Allison said. “There were only a select few colleges invited to the meeting and we were one of them.”
The meeting, which was run by San Mateo coach Tim Tulloch, lasted about two hours and 15 minutes, with a plan to continue the meeting at a later date.
Local law enforcement Ed Barberini (San Mateo police chief), Jeff Azzopardi (South San Francisco police chief), Carlos G. Bolanos (San Mateo County sheriff) council member Larry Moody and Dr. Joseph E. Marshall Jr. (executive director and co-founder of Alive & Free) were among others who attended the meeting.
Allison was disappointed with the way the meeting went.
“It didn’t really meet our expectations,” Allison said. “We were hoping to have more of an open dialogue, more of a direct question and answer session. The politicians and higher-ups in their community kind of high-jacked the forum and really used it to explain certain behaviors. I was disappointed that the minority young men didn’t have the spotlight.”
Despite the disappointment, Allison and Rosenbury hope to set up a similar meeting with his players and local leaders at some point in the future.
“There’s a veil of the unknown that needs to be lifted,” Allison, an African-American, said. “I don’t think non-minorities understand where our fear comes from. We fear that we might not make it out alive if we get pulled over. The only way we’re going to get through this is if we have those hard or challenging conversations.”
Rosenbury doesn’t know what the next step is, so he’s going to seek advice. He said he would talk to Chris Kennerly, who is the director of diversity, equality and inclusion at Kenyon. He’s also going to reach out to Tulloch and the San Mateo staff to see how they set up their meeting.
“I want to get local leaders involved and I want to get local law enforcement involved because I want to be able to have conversations,” Rosenbury said. “I want everyone to understand where everyone’s coming from because I think that’s something that we’ve kind of put in the rear-view mirror and just assumed that we all know when, in reality, we don’t.
“I think that’s become very evident that there’s a discord between the two. So, we’ve just gotta start talking about it and it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be painful and uncomfortable in certain situations. But that’s the only way we can grow is by pushing outside of our comfort zone.”
