Advertisement
football Edit

USC players talk about how letter to governor came to be

**NOT SUBSCRIBED? We have two incredible promos available for a limited time. 1) Take 70 percent off the first year of a new annual subscription with code PAC2020. Or, 2) Pay just $3 for premium access through the end of 2020 with code PACisBACK. Both promos are valid through Sept. 28. Details and sign-up links here.**

USC wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown was watching football two weekends ago, first the college games on Saturday and then the NFL the next day, when it had gnawed at him enough that he says he picked up the phone to reach out to Trojans coach Clay Helton.

"I was just thinking to myself, like, you see all these games and we're over here sitting on the couch. I've never really done that in my life, watched a season while not playing, so I called coach that Sunday and I asked him, 'What can we do as a team to try and possibly play this season?'" St. Brown recalled Friday.

That ultimately led to a meeting Monday that included fellow team leaders including quarterback Kedon Slovis, tight end Erik Krommenhoek and defensive back Greg Johnson, and the origins of an open letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom that would be posted that Tuesday on social media.

Soon after the Pac-12 announced Thursday that it had voted to relaunch a football season set to start Nov. 6/7, USC athletic director Mike Bohn emphasized to reporters the impact and importance he felt that player letter had on the whole process -- primarily, getting the attention of Newsom to open up dialogue between the state and the conference about adjusting the current public health guidelines that made it essentially impossible to hold any meaningful football practices in the state.

"I'm really proud of them, and I'm not sure we'd be where we are today without their leadership and how that became contagious to other leaders throughout the Pac-12 Conference," Bohn said.

The open letter -- a request to be allowed to play, touting the new rapid-result daily antigen testing capability the conference had acquired -- indeed spread quickly on social media, with players from other schools in the conference joining the chorus. By the next morning, Newsom had talked to Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott and by the end of that day the conference had announced it had made major progress on state and county regulations impacting half of its teams.

Those restrictions have not formally been changed yet, as Bohn acknowledged, "That's still a work in progress and we don't have every single aspect of this buttoned up yet, so we have some work to do there."

But the conference had enough assurances to make its announcement Thursday of a return to football in November.

As for the importance of that letter ...

"Well, when the governor is not having direct contact with the commissioner prior to that, I think it gives you a pretty clear indication," Bohn said.

On Friday, two of those players involved, along with Helton recounted how exactly it came to be.

"One of the things that we celebrate as coaches is celebrate the voice of the player, and when young men like Amon-Ra come to you and say, 'Hey, coach, how do we share our voice?' And [you] go, OK, let's see how the team feels about this and be able to look eyeball to eyeball at the team and get their feelings about it and go, wow, this is the way the entire team is feeling," Helton said. "And then just to be able to say, 'Guys, the only thing that I ask is, one, that you educate yourself on who you're writing the letter to and educate on what does it mean and what needs to be in the letter. Two, do it in a respectful and professional manner' -- just like they did, which made me so proud. 'And three, do it as a team -- don't do it as an individual. Make sure you do it as a team because that's who we are.'

"They took that advice and they ran with it, and when the finished product came out, I saw it, I couldn't be more proud. ... They became leaders not only for our school, but they became leaders for our conference, and that's what you want USC Trojans to do."

St. Brown said that group of team leaders held that meeting Monday of last week and leaned on some resources at USC to help come up with a draft of the letter "explaining why we think we should play, why 'SC has been so great to us, the medical staff and everything else."

"So we came up with a few ideas, passed it along to the team that Tuesday, and we decided to vote if the team feels we want to play and we want to release this letter. The team decided they wanted to do it so we decided to put it out," St. Brown said.

Said Slovis: "The only time we really watch college football during the year is while we're sitting in the hotel room waiting for our game to happen, so for us to be watching from home didn't sit right with a lot of us, I think. So when we came back to workouts that next day, coach kind of mentioned having a collective statement and I want to thank him and our athletic department for allowing us to make that statement and giving us the resources to do so. ...

"We kind of wanted to get it out before the Big Ten decided to come back. We felt that would be another big reason to kind of help our cause. So it was really exciting to see our letter come out and then the next day or so later have the Big Ten come out with their decision that they were going to end up playing. To have those two things happen and see the ball rolling was, for me, really exciting. I know the decision to play only came out yesterday, but as a player I kind of thought after that happened there was no chance they were not going to let us play."

The Pac-12 certainly hadn't shown any signs that it was taking substantive action on its own to that point or prioritizing trying to get back on the field this fall. Once the Big Ten was mobilizing its return last week, the Pac-12 was backed into a corner of either being the only Power 5 conference not playing football this fall or quickly rallying to find a way to make it happen.

Many fans are still frustrated that the conference will be starting two weeks after the Big Ten -- and even two weeks after the Mountain West, which announced its return plans the same day as the Pac-12. And to Bohn's point, it is fair to wonder where the situation would be if USC, starting with that player letter and the accompanying efforts of the Trojans administration, hadn't pushed the matter into the spotlight last week.

"Really excited and proud of the way team kind of came together last week to put pressure on local city and state officials to kind of help us out getting the season started," Slovis said Friday. "Really proud to be a part of that effort to kind of get this off the ground. ... Just excited to get the ball rolling and get out there and practice and play."

Advertisement
Advertisement