Freelance journalist and videographer Tim Sotter returned to Peoria Monday after reporting on the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, this week. Sotter appeared at a panel Tuesday as part of the inaugural Charley Steiner Sports Symposium to speak about collegiate sports media and the power of student athletes.
What’s happening at Mizzou?
Earlier this week, President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin stepped down from their positions at the University of Missouri after overwhelming criticism over how a number of racially motivated incidents were dealt with at the university.
The University of Missouri was silent on these issues until Nov. 6, when Wolfe stated in a public apology, “Racism does exist at our university, and it is unacceptable.”
“There’s things about Missouri that we don’t know about,” Chris Reynolds, director of Bradley University Athletics, said. “But … it’s not like this thing happened over the last couple of months. I think maybe there was a communication breakdown.”
On Nov. 8, Mizzou’s black football players stated that they would discontinue practicing and playing in games until Wolfe’s resignation.
Wolfe resigned from his position Nov. 9. Loftin resigned from his position Nov. 10 and will leave the university at the end of the year.
Panelists give insight
“This whole situation has really opened up a Pandora’s box of the power of athletes bonding together and accomplishing a mission, which they did,” Sotter said. “It’s news and sports coming together.”
According to sports reporter Dave Kindred, who was also present at the panel, it will be difficult to understand what happened at Mizzou until some time has passed.
“Print journalism will tell us, at some point in time, what happened,” Kindred said. “Right now, we know the headlines, we know the Twitter, we know what Facebook says … But we don’t know why they hired that president. At some point in time, we’ll know what the underlying foundation was that collapsed under that president. I think the football team had something to do with it, but only in the fact that it brought [the issue] to the public’s attention.”
However, a number of student audience members questioned whether there would be any national attention without the Mizzou football players’ strike, and how it would be handled if something similar were to happen at Bradley.
“If something like that were to happen here, it [would] definitely revolve around the men’s basketball team just because that’s kind of like our football,” Kendall Duffy, senior sports communication major and member of the softball team, said. “I think something like that could possibly happen here, but maybe to a smaller degree. But it would seem big to us.”
How student athletes can change the tide
Sotter said Bradley has a different atmosphere than Mizzou when it comes to sports.
“Peoria doesn’t have the national exposure so much that Missouri football does,” Sotter said. “Football is king, if you look at television ratings. It’s on a different platform than basketball. But if there was an issue here, it would grab the attention of the local media and maybe the national media somehow would tune into it.”
Duffy said she along with some of her peers were shocked at the effect student athletes were able to have on campus.
“We didn’t realize how [much power] the student athlete body and the student body can really have on a university,” Duffy said. “Seeing this play out, its evident that colleges really bank on the student athletes.”
Kindred said the best major college programs have some kind of liaison between players and coaching staffs, where the players’ concerns should be no surprise to the school president.
According to Reynolds, Bradley’s athletic department strives to be accessible for all student athletes.
“Certainly, our coaches come into my office any time they want, and I want our student athletes to feel that way, too,” Reynolds said. “I think, through communication, it can help to avert some of these things.”
