Election Day: Indiana Athletes Encourage Voting, Use Platforms to Create Change
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Being an athlete at Indiana University comes with its advantages.
There's the typical outpour of support from a fan base so passionate to see their teams succeed. With that comes a large following, and Indiana athletes have taken advantage of using that platform.
For Indiana women's basketball player Danielle Patterson, this summer and beyond has been an opportunity for her to speak up on the racial injustice going on in America.
"We've been blessed with these platforms being at Indiana," Patterson said. "It makes so much sense for us to use them for people that necessarily don't have that platform or just don't know exactly what's happening."
On Election Day, all Indiana athletes have the day off.
It's an important day for someone like Patterson, who wants to see her country change for the better.
"I think that when you're able to speak about those topics, especially being a black woman, it's really important to me and it's things that I think we need to talk about because it's so much bigger than sports at the end of the day," Patterson said.
Patterson said after she's done playing a basketball game and she's not donning the cream and crimson jersey anymore, she's a black person walking down the street, and it's important to her to keep talking about the issues at hand.
'Don't complain if you don't vote'
Ten Indiana athletics programs are 100 percent registered to vote in this year's election.
Those ten are football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, field hockey, volleyball, women’s soccer, men’s tennis, water polo, softball and rowing.
Running backs coach Mike Hart, who, along with cornerbacks coach Brandon Shelby, was instrumental to get the football team registered, had a specific message he wanted to get across to his team.
"We all know what's going on in America, and I tell the kids, you can't complain if you don't vote," Hart said. "These guys want to be heard. They want a voice."
Indiana Athletics' Excellence Academy began offering its athletes monthly programming as part of the Big Ten Conference’s Voter Registration Initiative.
The Excellence Academy’s monthly programming was designed to inform and educate athletes about the importance of civic engagement and how to both register to vote and ultimately submit a ballot.
"That's the biggest thing we want to tell them is that the power you have is not just the presidential election, it's your local elected officials as well," Hart said.
'It's a privilege and responsibility to be a part of it'
When Indiana wide receiver Whop Philyor saw Tom Allen protesting over the summer and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, it gave him hope.
It's one thing for Philyor, a black man, supporting the movement. But to see his coach, a prominent white man at a Big Ten institution, get behind it, he had hope that maybe it will get other white people to open their eyes.
“When they see Coach Allen doing it, they’re like, maybe it is the right thing to do because some people don’t think it’s the right thing to do, to be all for the Black Lives Matter because not all people think Black Lives Matter,” Philyor said in August. “To see Coach Allen do it, it really made me happy. It made me love him even more.”
Allen said that getting all his players registered to vote was a big goal for their program.
"We never tell them who to vote for, but we challenge them to study, know the issues and vote for the person or individual that you believe represents what you want," Allen said. "It is very important. I know this has been a national emphasis, but we have really taken that to heart here."
Allen called it a privilege and responsibility to be a part of voting. Allen and a couple others on the football team will be voting in person Tuesday.
As is the case with many Indiana athletes, several of them aren't from the state of Indiana, so a majority of them sent out votes via absentee ballots.
"It gives people the opportunity to express how they feel. Express what they feel like is necessary to the world," said Indiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who is from Florida. "Just being able to vote is giving everybody the chance to speak out and voice their opinion on everything that's going on."
Patterson said graduate manager Sadie Edwards was a big part in helping the women's basketball team get that set up.
It's been an all-around effort from Indiana athletics to make sure its athletes have their voices heard in an educated way.
“I am proud of our students, who expressed a strong desire to have their voices heard through the electoral process,” Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson said. “I’m also appreciative of (Big Ten) Commissioner (Kevin) Warren for his leadership in the formation of this conference-wide initiative to encourage all of our students to be informed and to fulfill this important civic duty.”
