Virginia football team responds to Charlottesville violence with resolve to inspire unity

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When the Virginia football team gathered Thursday morning for a brief meeting, the expectation was for another day in what, during preseason camp, becomes hot, fatiguing monotony. We’re talking about practice. But then Bronco Mendenhall announced a change of plans.

“Guys,” the coach said, “we’re going to the river!”

And that’s how 120-something inner tubes filled with football players, coaches and staff members came to be bobbing lazily down the James River. Mendenhall insists it was all about football, that the Cavaliers had been working hard, but after 17 practices he sensed they were tired and needed a break. But yeah, there was more.

“I felt like it was a way to relax our minds from everything that happened last weekend,” senior safety Quin Blanding says. “I think it was well needed.”

Last weekend, of course, saw controversy and carnage roil the idyllic town and its university’s campus (known to all here as “the Grounds”). White nationalists demonstrated Friday night and Saturday, protesting the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Saturday, one person was killed and 19 injured when clashes with counter protesters turned violent.

From a distance, the scenes horrified the nation. But from down the street?

“I was just disgusted,” Blanding says. “I know (racism) is still a big problem in this world, but to actually see it and be living through it is something that’s a lot different than what most people can say. We know there’s still a big divide between certain people … but it opens people’s eyes.”

Last Friday night, the white nationalists marched with torches through the Virginia campus, chanting racist slogans en route to the Rotunda. The building was designed by Thomas Jefferson and inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and is considered the university’s most hallowed ground.

“You felt an eeriness in the air,” senior linebacker Micah Kiser says.

As many of the Cavaliers football players watched the events unfold on TV and social media, they were “shocked,” according to senior quarterback Kurt Benkert, and “surprised it could be happening here.”

Benkert says his next thoughts were of “how it would be affecting my teammates and the people around here, especially African-Americans. … It’s like seeing a family member hurting. It’s not directly about you, but it’s affecting you because it’s affecting my brothers.”

Mendenhall grew more concerned when he arrived at the office early Saturday morning and saw dozens of law enforcement officers putting on riot gear in an adjacent parking lot. He knew the players would soon see the same scene.

And then a text clattered into his phone. Frank Wintrich, the Cavs’ director of football performance, forwarded a passionate text message from Kiser, one of the team’s leaders.

“I realized right then, this is volatile,” Mendenhall says. “There were a lot of different emotions. There’s anger. There’s fear. There’s anxiety. There’s compassion and other emotions, all mixed in at the same time. I realized how quickly one of our players could make a decision and act in a manner that might affect not only him individually, but our team.”

In a team meeting a little later, when Mendenhall opened the floor to players, he was glad when Kiser stood. The senior’s essential message: Though they were of different races and backgrounds — no, because they were of different races and backgrounds — they had an opportunity to lead in unity.

“He said, ‘Who better than us to show what appropriate, authentic, sincere and productive behavior looks like?’” Mendenhall says. “It was really powerful. I don’t think words from me would have had the same effect.”

Kiser’s message set the tone. When the situation in town disintegrated into violence later that day, the Cavaliers’ collective response was a stark contrast.

“No matter what color or race or religion you believe in, we’re all one together, no matter what,” Blanding says. “That’s as a country and how we should be as a whole. But as a team, we’re gonna be strong together.”

Shortly before the end of a scrimmage Saturday, Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage informed Mendenhall a state of emergency had been declared. The players spent the rest of the day at the athletic complex. They watched a movie — but mostly, they followed the events unfolding across town.

During preseason practices, some of the players are housed at the Cavalier Inn. During the weekend, so were some of the white nationalists. The team added security, and six coaches stayed there overnight. But there were no incidents.

Monday, at Kiser’s suggestion, they took a team photograph, sitting on the steps, arms locked together, at the Rotunda.

“You see these white nationalists and these racists walking through Grounds with these torches, kind of claiming that space, walking on the lawn, at the Rotunda — these really kind of iconic UVA places — and kind of claiming them as their own” Kiser says. “We just wanted to say, ‘This is our home, this is our community, this is our school. We’re not afraid of you. You can’t take away what’s ours.’ … It was us just reclaiming that space as ours, and a place of unity and a place of love, not hate.”

Similarly, the football players took part Wednesday night in a vigil. Along with thousands of others, they followed the same route taken by the demonstrators through campus to the Rotunda. With candles rather than tiki torches, they sang songs of unity instead of chanting slogans of division.

“It felt peaceful,” Blanding says. “Walking the same path they walked, and just cleaning up the streets and filling them with love. It was an honor to do it.”

And then Thursday, if only for a few hours, they got away from football — and everything else.

“Just having time to kind of release and just go have fun floating on the river, it was a great time,” Kiser says. “We’ve been having some really hard practices, trying to see who’s tough on the team, who’s accountable — trying to really see what we’re made of.”

In the last few days, along with everyone else, we’ve gotten a glimpse of what they’re made of.

“Unity and love, man, that’s it,” Kiser says. “We see this football team has the opportunity to really represent all the good that Charlottesville and UVa has to offer. We want to become a rallying point for not only the city but the school, and for everyone to get behind us. Hopefully we can represent them well with how hard we play and how well we play.

“It’s a big responsibility for us, but hopefully we can.”