CHAMPAIGN — The statement is powerful and pointed. Not a single name is attached, only a collective.
The single voice adds to its strength.
“The Illini Soccer Family stands with victims, families and communities of those affected by gun violence, especially those most recently in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas,” read a note posted Thursday morning on the Illinois women’s soccer team’s social-media accounts. “We are sending countless prayers and condolences to those affected by this tragedy.
“The loss of those innocent and loved lives is tremendous. Illini soccer stands against gun violence and believes that too many lives have been taken.
“Enough is enough.
“The weekend of June 3-5 has been recognized as gun-violence awareness weekend and to honor the victims lost, we will be running 3.2 miles or working out for 32 minutes to show our solidarity with the 32 victims and their families of these senseless and heartbreaking crimes.”
Janet Rayfield’s team felt compelled to speak out after the horrific mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo and an elementary school in Uvalde.
“It came from the players themselves,” Rayfield told me Thursday morning, shortly after the note went out on social media. “They reached out to me and said, ‘This is something we’ve talked about and feel strongly about, something we would like to do.’”
The players wrote the statement and have Rayfield’s full support.
“Absolutely,” she said. “It’s something that is indirectly affecting everybody in our country. I think our student-athletes know they have a little bit of a platform.”
When you are in college, you are supposed to react to what is going on around you.
“These young people have a voice,” Rayfield said, “and they want to use it.”
The statement went out on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok from the team’s social-media account.
“They wanted it to be a collective voice,” Rayfield said. “There were several captains that came to me and another member of the team wrote it.”
They all read and approved it before it went out for the public to consume.
“Certainly, it was something they all got behind,” Rayfield said.
Before the statement was posted, the Illinois athletic administration was made aware of the players’ objectives and intent.
A group run or workout won’t commence. The players are scattered across the country, playing with different summer teams. They are doing their runs and workouts on their own.
Fan reaction
Rayfield isn’t a social-media scroller. Good call by the veteran coach, who will start her 21st season in charge of the Illini in August.
On a quick check of Twitter and Facebook, there were likes and a few comments about the soccer team’s post.
In the mostly anonymous world of social media, it is easy to throw a digital punch and run. But there was none of that toward the Illini soccer team as of late Thursday afternoon. Rayfield doesn’t expect much because of the tone of the open letter.
“The statement wasn’t, ‘We need to do this or that,’” Rayfield said. “It was just, ‘We need to act.’ I think it would be hard for anybody to disagree with that statement, that this is a problem that innocent people are losing lives and this is something we need to address.”
Consider the source
These athletes are not the overserved guy at the bar mouthing off about all that ails the world.
The Illinois soccer team is filled with smart people, who will be involved in an array of professions after soccer is over.
“They understand that they have an opportunity, and some of them even think a responsibility, to make the world a better place,” Rayfield said. “This is a way they feel like they can impact things. I’m proud of them for collectively taking an opportunity to raise awareness for something they feel strongly about.”
The current generation of athletes are engaged beyond school and sports. In recent years, the Black Lives Matter and “#MeToo” movements drew support from Illini athletes.
When Rayfield was playing at North Carolina back in the day, she wasn’t as involved.
“Part of that was the access to information,” she said. “You didn’t have social media. You didn’t have the Internet. You could live in your bubble and not be aware of a lot of the things going on.
“This group certainly does not live in a bubble. That has its hard parts and it has its positive parts.”
Coaches are different now than when Rayfield played.
“We’ve all had to evolve and understand and be able to critically think and evaluate the things that we see and read,” Rayfield said.
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