When the Toledo women’s basketball team opened the season on Sunday afternoon, the only fans in attendance were players’ families due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But that didn’t stop Toledo players from wanting to make a statement about something they deem bigger than basketball.
Just ahead of tipoff, eight Toledo players took a knee during the national anthem — a form of protest that has become more popular across the sporting world in recent years after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose that method to protest police brutality and racial injustice.
Sophomore captain Quinesha Lockett, one of the players who took a knee, said that the team began to discuss possibly kneeling for the anthem when they also discussed adding patches on their jerseys that say “united as one”
“We really liked these additions to our jerseys,” Lockett said.