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Texas Longhorns football players continue to grapple with the moment, their platform, and the place of the sport in their lives following nationwide protests of police brutality after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd by kneeling in his neck for nearly nine minutes.
On Wednesday, junior linebacker Juwan Mitchell released a statement on Twitter saying that he doesn’t feel comfortable representing the university.
Do what’s right , never what’s liked. pic.twitter.com/xo4nf64H3a
— JuJu (@juwanmitchell_6) June 18, 2020
This isn’t about the Longhorns .. this isn’t about me. This is about our WORLD something that is much bigger than us
— JuJu (@juwanmitchell_6) June 18, 2020
It wasn’t immediately clear why Mitchell said that he’s uncomfortable representing the university or what it will mean for him moving forward with the football program.
The statement from Mitchell came as a report emerged that interim UT president Jay Hartzell and athletics director Chris Del Conte visited with the team to begin addressing Friday’s statement from athletes across sports and associated requests of the university.
However, once again, it wasn’t clear whether that meeting had any impact on Mitchell’s statement.
A junior college product who signed with the Longhorns last year, Mitchell appeared in 11 games with five starts during his sophomore season, recording 37 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, and three sacks. In late January, Mitchell entered the NCAA transfer portal, but took his name out five days later.