Updated at 7:42 p.m. Thursday with information from demonstrations during Thursday-night games in the Dallas area.
ARLINGTON — Arlington Martin football coaches cranked up the music to get their defensive players going as they started pumping iron Monday. AC/DC’s Hells Bells was the inspirational music of choice, and the ’80s classic provided an electric atmosphere, reverberating throughout the weight room as athletes began their squats and deadlifts.
It was superfluous noise. All the motivation the players truly needed could be found by glancing at a weight rack in the middle of the room.
That’s where a member of the Arlington Police Department was working out alongside the diverse group of teenagers who make up one of the best Class 6A teams in Texas.
Brian Jones, the first Black homicide sergeant in the history of Arlington PD, meets with Martin players on a weekly basis. He has been an integral part of the team’s ongoing conversations about racial injustice.
“You’ve got to treat everybody the same,” said senior defensive tackle Marquis Evans, who was Jones' workout partner Monday. “Nobody is born to hate. It’s something that’s taught and needs to be changed. He does a great job of showing that.”
Just days after George Floyd died May 25 while in police custody, Jones joined former and current Martin players for a meeting to discuss the outrage over police brutality. Jones serves as a mentor to Martin athletes as part of the Coach 5-0 program — a collaborative effort between Arlington ISD and Arlington police — and he confronted the issues head-on at the meeting in May by addressing the concerns of frustrated athletes while stressing that there are police who are in the job for the right reasons.
“We can let these incidents drive us apart or pull us together,” Jones said. “In our city alone, we have at least 11 youth initiatives that are geared toward engaging the community. Football, and sports in general, bring everybody together — all races, all cultures, all backgrounds and religions. I think what we’re doing with the Coach 5-0 program is pulling everybody together.”
Programs such as that are vital right now, as police departments try to regain the trust of the public.
The Dallas Police Department was criticized for using tear gas and less-lethal ammunition to control crowds during protests following Floyd’s death. At a June 1 demonstration on the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, 674 protesters were corralled and arrested. Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall has resigned, effective at the end of the year.
Coaches may have their beliefs challenged, but they’re willing to have difficult conversations because they back their players and want to learn from their wide range of experiences. Martin coach Bob Wager sat down with leaders on his team — players of various races — and talked about why certain words are offensive to different groups.
That is essential “for me to be able to coach them well, which if done well, should last a lifetime,” Wager said. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a 15-year-old Black male in southwest Arlington, anymore than they know what it’s like to grow up on a dairy farm in upstate New York.”
Wager is open to discussing the possibility of his players kneeling during the national anthem, even though he has ties to the police. In addition to working with Jones for five years, Wager had a close relationship with former Martin football player A.J. Castaneda, who became a Grand Prairie police officer and was killed in the line of duty in 2019.
Issues such as systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter movement were brought to the forefront of the sports world when professional leagues postponed games in late August as athletes sat out in protest. Class 6A and 5A football teams weren’t playing at the time, but with their season openers taking place this week and next, they now have a platform to make a statement.
How teams take a stand and display solidarity could look much different in 2020 than it did in 2017, when entire teams and groups of players knelt during the national anthem. Teams are using candid and passionate internal conversations among coaches and players of diverse backgrounds and races to spark real change that can have a lasting effect, rather than looking to make a one-day spectacle at a game.
Mansfield Timberview, Euless Trinity and Frisco had players kneel during the national anthem at games Thursday night. The entire Timberview team took a knee, with fists in the air, before the national anthem, and three players remained kneeling during the anthem. About 10 Trinity players took a knee during the national anthem before their game against Arlington Lamar at Globe Life Park. At Toyota Stadium, two Frisco players took a knee together, while a couple of their teammates linked arms.
Unified approach
Controversial former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been the face of the movement for social justice since he began protesting in 2016 by refusing to stand during the national anthem. Kaepernick wasn’t trying to disrespect the American flag, and soon after, other NFL players began kneeling or raising a fist during the anthem.
In this year’s season opener, defensive tackle Dontari Poe became the first Cowboys player to ever kneel during the national anthem.
“It’s just bringing more awareness to what’s going on in this world — to the racial injustices that’s going on, to the oppression that’s happening to my race, the Black people,” Poe said in an interview released through the team. “It’s not something that’s going to be solved in a day.”
Those are the images that high school athletes have seen on TV, but they’re finding other ways to get the same message out. Coaches are giving players the power to make their own decisions, though they’re wary of how the public might perceive protests by teenagers.
“It’s not something where I’m going to say, ‘This is my team, this is what you’re going to do,' or ‘We’re going to protest,’” Lewisville coach Michael Odle said. “People can have their opinions. We can talk about it, and we can grow because of it.”
North Forney held panel discussions with its five Black coaches, and the 5A team will have players stand in groups of three and lock arms during the national anthem. Each group will be racially diverse.
“I want them to have a voice, but not do anything polarizing,” coach Randy Jackson said.
Players at Class 4A Sanger have been wearing helmet stickers that promote unity, and Forney ISD schools and Lewisville High will do the same. DeSoto coach Claude Mathis plans to bring in a guest speaker to teach his players how to vote.
Many coaches said the possibility of kneeling hasn’t even been discussed, and the coronavirus pandemic is one reason. Class 6A and 5A teams are excited just to finally be playing games, and they’ve been too busy preparing for a season that was delayed by a month.
In the first two weeks of the NFL season, several teams stayed off the field during the national anthem, while some players who were present took a knee or raised a fist. High schools hope to make an impact at a local level.
“It goes way beyond the national anthem,” Wager said. "This is a great opportunity to build a closer relationship with your team, and nothing is off the table when it comes to topics of conversation.
“We’re not going to tackle this worldwide or nationwide issue all at once, but what we can do is tackle it right here in our locker room. The high school football locker room is a wonderful collection of diversity.”
That diversity is prominent throughout Arlington ISD, where 44% of the high school students are Hispanic/Latino, 25% are Black and 20% are white, according to AISD. Every Arlington ISD varsity football team has an officer working with it through the Coach 5-0 program.
Passionate decision
There weren’t signs of protest at games in D-FW while it was just Class 4A and below playing for the last month, but this week there will be five times as many games. If there are athletes who want to kneel, coaches will allow it, but it will be an individual decision, not a team decision.
“I’ll let them make their own decisions,” Spruce coach Carl Richardson Jr. said. “If they’re doing it for the right reasons, I’ll stand behind them. If they’re not, then we’ll have some questions and sit down and talk to the guys about it.”
Dallas ISD will support any athletes who choose to peacefully protest.
“We are letting students utilize and share their voices, as they have the right to do,” said Robyn Harris, DISD’s director of news and information. “We’re not going to stop or limit that.”
Neither will Wager. But he wants to know one thing first.
“I want to know why,” Wager said. “If they can tell me why, and are passionate about it, then I’m not one to dictate.”
In 2017, after President Donald Trump challenged NFL owners to fire any player who didn’t stand for the national anthem, there was a showing of solidarity throughout the NFL, as players chose to kneel or lock arms during the anthem. A few area high school teams also protested.
Two entire Dallas ISD teams — Spruce and Lincoln — knelt during the national anthem at separate games. Some players from Arlington Lamar, Garland and Garland Lakeview chose to kneel, and Hebron and Trophy Club Byron Nelson stood in their inflatable tunnels during the anthem, with their hands over their hearts.
Richardson said his team knelt to protest the death of Jordan Edwards, a Black Mesquite football player who was shot and killed by a white Balch Springs police officer earlier that year. At every game since Edwards' death, Mesquite players have locked arms during the anthem while putting their helmets in front of them so that the JE sticker honoring Edwards was visible.
Arlington Martin will be playing on the biggest stage in Texas high school football Friday, opening its season at the Cowboys' AT&T Stadium, with a television audience watching on Fox Sports Southwest. Martin has something big planned before its game against Denton Ryan, but Wager won’t divulge details.
“It’s going to be awesome, and it’s going to be unified,” he said.
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