Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren says no sports through the end of the year due to COVID. But… he’s fine with his son playing ball at Mississippi state…and despite every single Athletic Director in the Big Ten wanting to play ball.
As reported earlier, the Big Ten named Kevin Warren the Commissioner of the league last June. They probably didn’t see that this political hack would end all sports for the second half of 2020 when they did. Warren is supposed to oversee sports for the conference, not kill them.
Shortly after Warren took over Big Ten sports, Warren showed his true colors. As reported yesterday, Big Ten Commissioner Keven Warren shared the following after the death of George Floyd in May this year:
On Monday, May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a proud Black man, was killed by a member of law enforcement in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Emmett Till. The list goes on and on.
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Prior to joining the Big Ten Conference as Commissioner and relocating to Chicago, my family had lived full-time in the Minneapolis area for over 15 years as I worked as an executive with the Minnesota Vikings in the National Football League. Our kids were raised in Minnesota and attended school in Minnesota before leaving for college and the people of the great state of Minnesota are part of the fabric of our entire family.
As a Black man, I pray every day for the health and safety of my wife and children, especially during interactions with law enforcement. We continue to see inequality and deep divide regarding how members of the Black community are treated compared to the rest of society and too often, the results have been horrific and senseless. Such racism and inequality are pervasive, not just endemic in law enforcement.
We asked, how often does the Commissioner pray for his family’s interactions with law enforcement? How many times has his family interacted with law enforcement? Did the Minnesota Vikings hire police to protect their fans and players during games? What the hell exactly was Warren ranting about?
If the Big Ten Chancellors were doing their job they would have fired Warren the day he wrote his diatribe about the police. Instead these ignoramuses kept him on long enough to end the fall football season.
In June, Yahoo reported that Warren was black and this diversity of color is a good thing :
There’s a good chance that the next leader of the United States will emerge from voters in swing states in the Big Ten Conference’s footprint. Five states that President Donald Trump won in 2016 – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa – were democratic states when Barack Obama won the election in 2012.
First-year Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren has made it a priority that the conference’s nearly 10,000 athletes will have a say in that election. Warren is in just his fifth month in charge of the 14-member league, and he’s made it clear with his early actions that social change will be among the league’s priorities. The Big Ten announced a league-wide voter registration initiative on Monday, which will include non-partisan education and a deeper understanding of registration, voting and voter suppression.
“From a social change standpoint, I think our biggest asset is our right to vote and to be an educated voter,” Warren told Yahoo Sports in a phone interview on Sunday. “It’s important, not only from national politics, but from local politics. Who is on your school board? Who is your local sheriff? Who is your district attorney? Who is your attorney general? Who are your judges? All those different things really mean something.”
Warren, 56, came to the Big Ten from the Minnesota Vikings’ front office. He’s arguably the most influential and powerful minority in all of college athletics. And his early actions from the Big Ten chair portend that he can become one of the most influential leaders in all of college athletics, which glaringly lacks diversity in leadership and coaching positions.
Warren showed that his priorities as Commissioner weren’t sports, they were politics.
Next comes the Big Ten’s fall sports season and this is big in the Big Ten. The universities make millions in college football which ends up paying for smaller sports and women’s sports for the rest of the year. But after sending out the league’s schedule, Warren suddenly decided a few days later to ‘postpone’ all sports (to God knows when) through the remainder of the year.
ESPN reported:
The Big Ten has faced significant backlash over the timing of the decision, which came just six days after the league announced its 10-game, conference-only schedule on the Big Ten Network. Coaches, athletic directors, fans and parents have publicly and privately expressed frustration and outrage at a lack of communication and explanation about the about-face.
Big Ten football brings in massive revenues that support the institutions in the league for the entire year. Students, families and athletes are livid.
Warren claims:
“The decision was thorough and deliberative, and based on sound feedback, guidance and advice from medical experts,” Warren wrote in his first public comments since announcing the league’s decision on Aug. 11. “Despite the decision to postpone fall sports, we continue our work to find a path forward that creates a healthy and safe environment for all Big Ten student-athletes to compete in the sports they love in a manner that helps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protects both student-athletes and the surrounding communities.”
As we pointed out yesterday, apparently the great medical schools of the Big Ten couldn’t find a single doctor who could read and interpret the data related to COVID-19. Maybe a picture from the CDC no less is better for these intellectuals:
Look at the line for the number of deaths related to those under the age of 24 (for the Big Ten Commissioner and Chancellors this would be every single football player in the Big Ten).
That’s right – basically no deaths at all related to COVID-19 in the US for individuals under the age 24. Perhaps someone should share with these sharp shooters that the athletes in the Big Ten are not over age 85!
We reported this morning that there’s a question as to whether there was even a vote on ending sports for the year by the Big Ten:
According to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour questioned whether any sort of vote on the whole sordid deal took place. And it’s not just her. Minnesota president Joan Gabel also made comments alluding to the absence of any real vote.
This mess already has ramifications. The University of Nebraska just announced furloughing more than 50 and is implementing salary reductions due to a now $100 million budget hole. The University of Iowa has now dropped four sports and announced it is in deep financial trouble as a result of Warren’s politics.
Now it’s been reported that every single athletic director in the Big Ten wanted to play fall football. Every single one, but they were not given a voice in the decision to play football – only Warren was, and he and the chancellors decided to kill the season!
And finally to top it all off, Commissioner Warren has a son who is going to play ball this year at Mississippi State in the SEC.
