Big Ten football parents are protesting outside league offices today

Parents of Big Ten football players went to Chicago to protest on Friday.

Many parents of Big Ten football players are not pleased with the league’s current leadership.

On Friday morning, parents of four Big Ten member institutions (The Ohio State University, the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), met in Chicago to protest the league’s blatant lack of transparency for postponing/canceling fall sports. These parents are not thrilled with commissioner Kevin Warren.

The Big Ten has let down the players, the parents, the fans and everyone.

With 13 of the 14 member institutions in the Big Ten being public universities, the presidents who voted in favor of college football’s postponement to January should be forced to have their voting record come out publicly. These parents are some of the taxpayers who fund these president’s cushy salaries and it is so beyond disgraceful that they can continue to hide in their ivory towers.

The consequences of not playing college football this fall are catastrophic, especially if the ACC, the Big 12 and the SEC go forward with their seasons to completion. No parent in their right mind should encourage their son or daughter to sign on to play college athletics in a conference where the elites only care about themselves.

All these parents are asking for is something more than a tone-deaf, empty statement from Warren and their university presidents. The saliva-test, which was developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, could be a complete and total game changer for allowing college athletics to be back in our lives. It has been FDA approved, yet the Big Ten refuses to accept it.

Not every parent in the Big Ten is like Randy Wade, the father of Ohio State standout Shaun Wade, who has a realistic shot of being a first-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. For many of these parents, the last time their son will put on a football uniform is to play for his Big Ten team. To have that delayed and have two seasons be played in the same calendar year is moronic.

It may have been on a Friday and a sparsely attended protest, but we’re pretty sure the point got crossed. If Wade came make the trek from Jacksonville, Florida to Chicago, Illinois in the midst of a global pandemic to fight for his son’s right to play, the Big Ten can figure out how to play college football this fall, just like the ACC, the Big 12 and the SEC are. Of course, that requires leadership.

If the Big Ten goes forward with its short-sided plans, the conference will pay for it for decades.

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