EKU football kicker claims safety at risk & steps down due to COVID-19 concerns surrounding team

[MelissaB]

EKU football kicker Landon White claims player safety at risk

White steps down due to COVID-19 concerns surrounding the football team

Eastern Kentucky University football kicker, Landon White, announced in an Instagram post Tuesday, Aug. 4 that he has resigned from his position on the team due to frustrations and concerns surrounding COVID-19 and player safety.

In the post, White wrote, “No matter what you hear the facts are the facts, with the main fact being the coach and some staff, do not care about player safety.”

White’s post continued, “This is a tough day for me, but somebody has gotta tell the truth on what us athletes are going through during this pandemic.”

... snip

“The head coach does not care about his players as well as his staff and their families,” White said. “He cares about the 500K (dollars) we are about to earn by playing WVU (West Virginia University) in Morgantown at the end of the month.”

He wrote that Wells holds meetings where hundreds of athletes and staff are crammed together with no social distancing and masks involved.

More: https://www.easternprogress.com/sports/eku-football-kicker-landon-white-claims-player-safety-at-risk/article_48eae502-d6c2-11ea-b636-c324b0d03242.html

EKU is in Richmond, KY (just outside of Lexington).


Here is Landon's Instagram post:

8-4-20. My last day is finally here.
Today I have resigned my position on the Eastern Kentucky University football team as a kicker. Not huge news in the sports world I know but... No matter what you hear the facts are the facts, with the main fact being the coach and some staff, do not care about player safety. I will surely miss my brothers on the field. This is a tough day for me, but somebody has gotta tell the truth on what us athletes are going through during this pandemic.

At Eastern Kentucky Football there is little or no testing, (last team test was July 6). Symptomatic players still in the building and around other teammates. But the same day people had symptoms we continued to practice instead of face the issue head on. Keep in mind we started fall camp on Friday July 31st. We have plenty of players and staff test positive over the past month. But you have probably heard very little on the matter. Have y’all heard about us suspending anything? Of course not. There are meeting rooms with 100+ players and staff crammed into it with zero space and no social distancing rules in sight. There are a bunch of potential positives in there. The Player cafeteria (case dining hall) endangers the EKU Cafeteria staff as well as other students who are now on campus, masks are routinely not worn while players are constantly being reminded by the dining hall staff instead of our coaches to keep it on.

The Head Coach knows and the Head Coach does nothing. The Head Coach does not care about his players safety as well as his staff and their families. He cares about the 500k we are about to earn by playing WVU in Morgantown at the end of the month. The truth has to be told and I’ll be your guy.

I love my teammates as well as my family and I’ll forever cherish the l moments I had with them. With 2 pregnant sisters, 3 nieces and a nephew, and a mom & dad as well as my Grandmother and grandfather I love dearly, I need to protect them at ALL cost. I will not endanger anyones health by continuing to play. This goes for my players family and my family.

People need to know what the NCAA and University is really about and it’s not about player safety. #DoTheyReallyCare

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDfJDaApM0j/

Ouch!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. My personal guess is that college football will last no

more than two weeks before it's shut down entirely.

And while I am not myself much of a sports fan, I do understand that a whole lot of athletes are going to lose out in a big way because of this. Depending on how long this lasts, and think years, not just a few more months, there may well be a college generation of athletes who lose out.

[Initech]

4. God, I do not want to think this is going to last years.

Because this is no way to live.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Ohh, get ready for years.

Here's what I've been telling people. Pretend it's 1939 and we're planning a trip to Europe next year. We've been saving and planning and next year is it! We'll be going to London, Paris, Rome, Venice, a bunch of other places and we're really looking forward to it. But then September rolls around and WWII breaks out. Damn! We're not going to Europe next year, but we remain optimistic, hope the war won't last very long and we'll be able to take that trip in 1941.

But the war goes on and on, and finally ends in 1945. The soonest we might possibly make that trip will be 1946, more likely a year or two later. And when we finally go, the Europe we finally see is vastly different from the Europe of our 1939 hopeful plans.

It's going to be something similar to this. When it's finally over, to the extent it ever is, a lot of things will be very different. Some better, because I do think we will finally get some kind of universal health care and perhaps reduced costs at public colleges and universities. Some worse such as maybe not being able to visit family and friends very often. But we are not going to simply go back to the life we knew in October, 2019. We're not. And we all have to get used to understanding that.

[Initech]

7. Sorry but I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get used to it.

I refuse to accept this nightmare virus world and I guess if it's years then I will be miserable for years. I hope to god we will get drugs and vaccines that will allow some sort of normal life to resume. We may not be fully 100% but as close to normal as possible. Fuck this COVID world. Being trapped at home all day every day and not being able to even do basic tasks like go to the store or go to work is no way to live a life.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. Unfortunately, you are going to have to get used to it.

If you fight it all the way then you really will be miserable for years. I'm pretty sure you don't want that.

Meanwhile, there are going to be adjustments in our society, some of which we can guess at, some of which will be completely different.

If people simply hang in there thinking this will be over soon, and we'll all go back to the way it was before, they're in for a complete shock. Keep in mind that since this is a novel virus, meaning none of us have immunity ahead of time, until there is a safe and effective vaccine we are all going to be at risk. The fact that some people get terribly sick and even die, while others have no or even very mild symptoms, is part of the problem.

Here's a statistic to ponder: Right now about half of all the Covid-19 deaths in this country are people who were in nursing homes. To me, that's astonishing for a lot of reasons. But maybe that's actually (in a truly perverted way) a good thing, in that it means that most of us are simply not all that much at risk. Right now, who knows?

But this isn't going to go away like a bad flu season. Speaking of which, I read a day or two ago that the flu season in the southern hemisphere was almost non-existent this year, apparently because international travel, the main source of influenza spread, was essentially shit down. Which also means that we will probably have almost no influenza later on this year and into next.

[LizBeth]

3. Good for him. Not all young people are unconcerned. It is good to hear standing up for his right to

stay safe and keep those around him safe.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. Illustrates the poison of big outside money on collegiate sports.

This young fellow is a hero in my world.

KY...........