Red is not one of Penn State's school colors. But when they took the field against the Winthrop baseball team March 18-19, every Nittany Lion sported a red wristband in protest of the Confederate flag flying above the state capitol.
That weekend, Penn State joined the growing list of sports organizations that have made some sort of statement against the Confederate flag.
The resistance has been slowly building since January, when the NAACP first announced the boycott. Some NCAA schools in the Philadelphia area, including Temple and Swarthmore, canceled lacrosse and tennis matches in South Carolina, and various professional and national sports organizations have taken action. In addition, several prominent individuals in the sporting world, like Serena Williams, Lou Holtz and Terry Bowden, have expressed their support of the boycott.
Although the South Carolina state senate voted last week to remove the flag from atop the statehouse, the NAACP is continuing the boycott because the bill hangs a Confederate flag at a monument on statehouse grounds. Similarly, the NCAA is awaiting the legislature's final decision before it changes policy.
For now, NCAA officials are taking seriously a letter they received from the National Association of Basketball Coaches. The letter asked the NCAA to move the
Wally Renfro, public relations director for the NCAA, sees a sports boycott as another chapter in the long history of sports and politics.
"I think you have to understand that sports in America are a microcosm of society-people love their sports," Renfro said. "This is not the first time by a long shot that sports have been used for political purposes and it won't be the last time. Sports is where human drama is played out and it doesn't stop for politics."
The ACC has gotten involved, if only to a limited extent. It is urging baseball coaches to stay in North Carolina hotels during the conference championships, which will be held in the border town of Rock Hill, S.C.
"We're not saying very much," said Dee Todd, assistant commissioner for the ACC and director of championships. "We're supporting the removal of the flag. Since our agreement had been signed prior to this becoming an issue, we have agreed to hold it there. We hope the issue will be resolved soon, since we've scheduled it there again next year."
The Blue Devils were already scheduled to stay within North Carolina and were therefore not affected by the ACC's request. As a whole, Duke has not been actively involved with the boycott.
Several Blue Devil sports teams have played in South Carolina since the boycott, and there has been little, if any, talk of changing the games.
"I haven't heard anybody even mention it," said men's tennis coach Jay Lapidus, whose team has played three matches in South Carolina this season. "I'm kind of surprised that any of this is even going on."
Women's track coach Jan Samuelson-Ogilvie said that the only sports talk she has heard on the issue is from her sister-in-law, Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson, who ran in the Olympic marathon trials in Columbia in late February.
"My brother and his wife were appalled," Samuelson-Ogilvie said. "Had there been more time, there would have been a bigger effort made against the flag."
Many sports teams are also locked into contracts with other schools, which could result in a forfeited game if one school decides not to attend.
"With respect to our tennis team, when the issue arose we had not yet completed our registration for a tennis tournament," Temple athletic director Dave O'Brien said. "Given the importance of the issue and the controversy surrounding it, we felt that the prudent course of action was to look for a tennis tournament in another Southern state. In this way, we were supporting the issue in both word and deed."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.