A new football tailgate topic: Do Black Lives Matter?

The ACC made it official: football season is on for the fall — despite the formidable challenges of coronavirus. So the Clemson Tigers, pride of the league, are expected to vie yet again for a national championship.

Covid-19 aside, anyone who thinks Clemson football, or college football, is now back to normal, hasn’t been paying attention. The game changer? Black Lives Matter, the racial justice movement that has surged following the grisly death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police in May. Since then, two very different incidents in South Carolina embody the after-effect on the South’s favorite game and the many young African-American men who play it.

One unfolded in Clemson, a small college town in the northeast foothills of the state, a most unlikely setting for a seismic quake in the racial justice movement. The region abounds with Confederate flags and Trump banners.

But on a Saturday in June, four Clemson football players — three Black and one white — led a march and rally for racial justice attended by hundreds of Clemson students and sanctioned by head coach Dabo Swinney, who had earlier been called out for appearing in a photograph wearing a “Football Matters” T-shirt.

The three Black players — Mike Jones Jr., Darien Rencher, and Cornell Powell — showed courage and leadership in leading this demonstration. But it was the impassioned appearance by the white player, Trevor Lawrence, that confronted many white Clemson fans with the uncomfortable disconnect between rabidly rooting for their Tigers, while dismissing, or opposing Black Lives Matter.

As a freshman quarterback in 2018, Lawrence led the team to a perfect season, culminating in a 44-16 victory over mighty Alabama for the national championship. The stuff of dreams.

So there he stood with his teammates — this 6’ 6” 20-year-old gladiator with shoulder-length blonde hair — in front of a large banner proclaiming Black Lives Matter. Here is some of what he said:

“It’s uncomfortable to set aside everything I know about America and listen to someone else’s perspective. However, it’s necessary. Recently I’ve realized that the America I’ve experienced is different from the America my brothers and sisters experience.”

Describing his “journey” to lift others up to stand for those “who shouldn’t have to stand alone, ” he pledged to listen more, show more empathy and compassion to “those who are in pain” and quoted scripture in exhorting the crowd to “keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.”

This wasn’t an isolated incident. In Tuscaloosa, the Valhalla of college football, Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban appeared in a video written by one of his players, featuring Black and white players, entitled “All Lives Can’t Matter Until Black Lives Matter.” In it, he says: “In this moment of history we can’t be silent. We must speak up for our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters.” In Athens, UGA players posted a video in which one said “I hear you when you say ‘Go Dawgs!’ But do you hear me now?”

Paul Finebaum, the influential football commentator whose radio show is streamed on ESPN, told the Los Angeles Times this development “is going to revolutionize recruiting. It’s going to change everything.”

Not everyone got the word. In Columbia, a Black star high school linebacker named Coby Cornelius went on Twitter to express his lack of enthusiasm for the 4th of July holiday based on the country’s foundation on slavery. A white long-time high school football recruiting analyst named Jim Baxter decided to patriotsplain the player.

“You may want to read your history young man…if you don’t like the country, get the hell out of it. Go somewhere else you think you can live better.”

To which Cornelius replied: “Yes, of course I will go read my history again. Which one would you like me to read? The truth, or the history that kept African Americans illiterate until 1870?”

Baxter fired back: “I hope all the recruiters are getting a good look at your post. Good luck with that.”

Then Baxter got the word. Several high school coaches declared him unwelcome. The Columbia radio station that covers high school football announced that Baxter was no longer affiliated with it. Angry Tweets followed.

For football in South Carolina, the south, and across the country, you can see the future in Trevor Lawrence and Coby Cornelius. Jim Baxter is history.

If that makes you uncomfortable, Trevor Lawrence had words for you at the Clemson rally: “Uncomfortable,” he said, “will be an important word in achieving equality.”

This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 1:34 PM.