Well, I was going to talk to the point that there's so much going on right now. You got the kids dealing with COVID and all the families and how that affects families. You've got families now that have additional mouths to feed that didn't anticipate having those mouths to feed. You got so many families that maybe where a parent's been laid off or whatnot, or has to take off so that way they can watch their two little children or whatever at home because there was no school or anything like that or places you could take. There's so many things going on, and then, of course, we had the huge thing, obviously, that happened in Minneapolis.
I tell you, we met as a team Zoom-wise, and I was real encouraged about that, about not having, obviously, many answers at all, but asking the players what they would expect from us and what they would like to see us do or be. I think the one thing that has come true more than anything is to stand with each other. We ask them to stand with us daily, and I think it's great that we stand with them, too, but the biggest thing that I've learned is, as a head coach, we're always the ones barking out instructions and giving orders. I think this has been a great opportunity for me to listen and learn from others. Certainly, players give you an opportunity to do that, but also history does as well.
I think that this is obviously so tragic of what's happened in everything, but somehow or another, I think the movement and the stance is very positive and voices are being heard, and there's so many things that have happened that, from my perspective, where I was growing up and from what I saw, I didn't know what was transpiring and didn't understand. It amazes me how people are so opinionated on what's right and what's wrong, but they've never seen it from somebody else's perspective. They only see it from the way they were raised. If I was raised Republican or Democrat, my parents were, well, there's a great chance when I'm 18 years old, I'm probably going to register whatever they were. That's just kind of what we know, and I'm not saying it always stays that way, but it's different.
I'm looking forward to our players coming back so they, and we, can take a role and trying to do some things for not only our university, but for our community as well, and I think that's going to happen. So many good things going on out there, but there's also, obviously, a ton of bad things, too. You have good and bad and everything. What we've seen has been awful. Certainly, the protest, the Black Lives Matter movement and what's going on, I think the voice is being heard and I think has been very positive.
I'm actually doing something tomorrow with Blair Kerkhoff and Cuonzo Martin, and I think Dayton may be on there, too, Dayton [Moore 00:03:59], to talk about this. But every time that I talked to somebody, whether it be my staff, whether it be players, whether it be watching a documentary, whether it be listening to a podcast of others, because I have a lot of people send me stuff, every time I watch, I learn something that I didn't know and I'm not sure I have been near as open to learning as what I should have been going back and double-checking it or looking in the rear view mirror.
So, I think it's interesting, but I'm really looking forward to, and I know Jeff feels strongly about this, Jeff Long, our athletes feeling freedom to be able to voice their opinions and voice their feelings without feeling that there's consequences for speaking out for something that maybe isn't the norm for everybody else. This is going to be something that, over time, we'll see some positive changes come out of.
I tell you, we met as a team Zoom-wise, and I was real encouraged about that, about not having, obviously, many answers at all, but asking the players what they would expect from us and what they would like to see us do or be. I think the one thing that has come true more than anything is to stand with each other. We ask them to stand with us daily, and I think it's great that we stand with them, too, but the biggest thing that I've learned is, as a head coach, we're always the ones barking out instructions and giving orders. I think this has been a great opportunity for me to listen and learn from others. Certainly, players give you an opportunity to do that, but also history does as well.
I think that this is obviously so tragic of what's happened in everything, but somehow or another, I think the movement and the stance is very positive and voices are being heard, and there's so many things that have happened that, from my perspective, where I was growing up and from what I saw, I didn't know what was transpiring and didn't understand. It amazes me how people are so opinionated on what's right and what's wrong, but they've never seen it from somebody else's perspective. They only see it from the way they were raised. If I was raised Republican or Democrat, my parents were, well, there's a great chance when I'm 18 years old, I'm probably going to register whatever they were. That's just kind of what we know, and I'm not saying it always stays that way, but it's different.
I'm looking forward to our players coming back so they, and we, can take a role and trying to do some things for not only our university, but for our community as well, and I think that's going to happen. So many good things going on out there, but there's also, obviously, a ton of bad things, too. You have good and bad and everything. What we've seen has been awful. Certainly, the protest, the Black Lives Matter movement and what's going on, I think the voice is being heard and I think has been very positive.
I'm actually doing something tomorrow with Blair Kerkhoff and Cuonzo Martin, and I think Dayton may be on there, too, Dayton [Moore 00:03:59], to talk about this. But every time that I talked to somebody, whether it be my staff, whether it be players, whether it be watching a documentary, whether it be listening to a podcast of others, because I have a lot of people send me stuff, every time I watch, I learn something that I didn't know and I'm not sure I have been near as open to learning as what I should have been going back and double-checking it or looking in the rear view mirror.
So, I think it's interesting, but I'm really looking forward to, and I know Jeff feels strongly about this, Jeff Long, our athletes feeling freedom to be able to voice their opinions and voice their feelings without feeling that there's consequences for speaking out for something that maybe isn't the norm for everybody else. This is going to be something that, over time, we'll see some positive changes come out of.
