Long before Trey Hopkins became the mantle of a Bengals offensive line rocked by change as it prepped for Monday night's game (8:15 p.m.-ESPN and Cincinnati's Channel 5) against the Steelers, he was an aspiring scientist in gifted classes playing high school football in east Houston who noticed details.
One of them is when he watched football, it struck him that while white players were routinely described as "He carries his lunch pail," or "He knows exactly where he's supposed to be," or "He's always in the playbook," as "dependable," and "coachable," they were rarely called "athletic."
That seemed to be reserved for African-Americans like himself. Black players, Hopkins noted, were not only known as "athletic," but they were also "explosive," or, "they have intuition." Or, "they have good ball skills." To Hopkins, it seemed the terms "I.Q." or "smart," were rarely applied to black players.
Hopkins, who spent part of an offseason in Cincinnati teaching seventh grade science and math, went a little bit younger during this season when he brought those kinds of experiences into two Zoom sessions with fifth- and sixth graders from a couple of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky schools as part of the Bengals' partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center's Implicit Bias Experiences program.
For Ryan Wynett, manager of the program who moderates the discussions, that seemed to be about the right age. He had worked with former Bengal Michael Johnson's foundation a few years ago and it resonated with him when Mike told him he was about ten when he began to notice people going one way or the other.
"Trey was phenomenal both times," Wynett says. "Having him up there as saying, 'Yeah, I'm a professional athlete who is black, but I can also play the piano and I could have been a biologist,' I think is a really important visual for these kids to see. Maybe it doesn't resonate for them this year, but eventually it will. Just representation and being at the table."
The partnership with the Freedom Center's Implicit Bias program grew out of the players' goal to foster social justice in the city through a variety of programs with the $250,000 the Bengals gave to the cause back in the spring. Hopkins, tight end C.J. Uzomah and running back Trayevon Williams have also Zoomed with classes this season and Wynett says he couldn't have power-pointed it anybody better.
"It's been everything I had hoped for and more," Wynett says. "They've had experiences I could never had."
In Hopkins, 28, the self-made seventh-year man out of Texas whose only college play at center was a kneel-down snap, Wynett hit gold. The week before the season, Hopkins, with input from a variety of teammates, wrote the players' two-paragraph social justice mission statement he and quarterback Joe Burrow read in front of the Freedom Center after the team and ownership marched the two blocks from Paul Brown Stadium.
"center" - Google News
December 20, 2020 at 08:47PM
https://ift.tt/2KnyNZd
Hopkins Explicitly Puts His Words Into Actions Front And Center - Bengals.com
"center" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bUHym8
https://ift.tt/2zR6ugj
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Hopkins Explicitly Puts His Words Into Actions Front And Center - Bengals.com"
Post a Comment