O’Leary: Argos are open, respectful with anthem debate

The conversation, Matt Black said, was a brief but helpful one with coach Marc Trestman.

The Toronto Argonauts coach gathered his team on Tuesday and as Black explained, addressed the elephant in the room.

With players quickly in and out of Monday’s stretching session, the coach waited until he had the entire group together to talk about how players, coaches and owners across the NFL banded together to protest U.S. president Donald Trump’s comments from Friday on NFLers that knelt during the national anthem.

“It was very positive. Coach was spot on,” Black, a 32-year-old defensive back from Toronto said.

“He explained to us a little bit how he grew up and what his thoughts on the matter were and I thought it was very well said.”

“We just had a conversation about making sure we all understood that we all had our individual right to express ourselves in a free way. Not only in Canada, which we respect and appreciate, but in the United States under the first amendment of the constitution,” Trestman said.

“We’re going to be respectful with everybody’s opinions on how they feel about what’s going on down there and it went quickly to focusing on the most important thing for our football team,” he said, with emphasis. “Not the individuals but as a team, just getting focused. That was really much of the direction that the morning went.”

“(Anthem protests are) not a conversation we’ve had in this locker room. If there are guys that want to have it I’m open to having a discussion. I’m open to having it and talking about it. That’s what the joy of living a free society is.

– Argos DB Matt Black

Black said that there’s been plenty of discussion about NFL players kneeling for the American anthem and about Trump. What hasn’t come up, he said, was the idea that those protests would make their way onto their sideline. While the Saskatchewan Roughriders linked arms during the playing of O Canada prior to their game on Sunday, receiving the support of the Riders organization and CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie, Black said doing something similar on the Argos’ sideline hasn’t been discussed.

“For me, I support equality. For me, to have a view that is based on people’s race, religion, gender, orientation, it’s simple-minded to judge someone off of the way that they look,” Black said.

“(Anthem protests are) not a conversation we’ve had in this locker room. If there are guys that want to have it I’m open to having a discussion. I’m open to having it and talking about it. That’s what the joy of living a free society is. You have those abilities to have those conversations and you have the ability to disagree. You don’t have to agree with everything.

“It’s about having those conversations and having those dialogues because there are places on this earth where you’re not allowed to have those dialogues. We need to use our rights and we need to express our rights and our viewpoints and I think doing them in a peaceful way is the best way, so we can enact change like that. If that’s a conversation that guys in the locker room want to have I’m open to having it but that’s not something we’ve discussed at this time.”

Black played football at Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan. Through his college career and a nine-year CFL career, he’s made countless American friends. He’s watched the anthem kneeling debate flare up over the last year, until it exploded into an emotion-fuelled ball of fire over the weekend and into Monday Night Football.

“A lot of the guys on our team have to go back and live in America,” he said. “They’re here for six months and then they go home. They’re here in another country, looking at what’s going on and what their family and friends are dealing with on a day-to-day basis and I think that’s something we need to be aware of and something we need to be sensitive to. They’re our brothers.

“Some of these guys I’ve known and played with for years and family, friends watched their children grow up. I want the best for them. I know a lot of them are deeply hurt by what’s going on down there.”

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Argonauts head coach Marc Trestman addresses his team before a Week 13 matchup at home. He did the same Tuesday morning ahead of his club’s practice to open conversation about the recent protests by NFL players down south (Johany Jutras/CFL)

Black supports the NFL players that protested in their own way this weekend and offered a reminder that athletes — the Argos in particular — have been using their platforms to make a difference in their communities for years.

“I think that’s what a lot of athletes do on a regular day basis,” he said. “There are guys out here…Jermaine Gabriel volunteers for the Scarborough Thunder and helps them out with practice. A lot of people don’t see what we do outside of the football field.”

Black volunteers with the Argos’ bullying prevention program Huddle Up, and is active in the team’s Level The Playing Field program, which teaches football across the Greater Toronto Area. He won the 2016 Jake Gaudaur Award for his commitment to community involvement.

Last week, Argos offensive lineman Jamal Campbell was named a Toronto Urban Hero in the sports category for his work with kids in schools in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood that he grew up in.

“Shawn Lemon’s in schools talking to kids and a lot of guys are using their platform to make positive change and use positivity as a vehicle to enact change,” Black said.

“(The protests are) another example of athletes doing that and doing it in a peaceful manner. To make it about something that it’s not is a diversionary tactic. It’s not accomplishing anything, it’s not helping solve the issue of racial inequality and it’s just causing more division and it’s causing more hatred.

“There are a lot of people in America that are feeling oppressed. I think it’s very positive that those athletes are joining together and making a stand for something for the common good of everyone. If it’s happening to one segment of the population it’s just a matter of time before it happens to anther and it happens to another.”