Report: Grambling players walk out on meeting, don’t attend practice
The football team at Grambling is making a statement.
The Shreveport Times reports that the team walked out of a meeting on Tuesday and didn't report to practice on Wednesday. They're unhappy with numerous things, including transportation, facilities and the dismissal of coach Doug Williams, the former Super Bowl winning quarterback, in September.
The source said the teams’ frustrations have been boiling over a period time. Those frustrations include what’s considered as general disrespect from administration, not receiving all meals on road trips, taking a bus to distant locations like Kansas City and Indianapolis and the poor state of facilities like the weight room. Players attended morning weight training until the session abruptly ended after one player was kicked out after voicing his opinion in Tuesday’s meeting. All players left the weight training session.
The player, according to the report, was initially dismissed from the team, though he's now back on the team and interim coach George Ragsdale may suspend him instead. Tuesday's meeting was with Ragsdale, the university president, athletic director and student government president.
Grambling State is a historically black college in Louisiana and in the football world is most known for coach Eddie Robinson, who retired in 1997 after amassing 408 wins in 56 years as head coach. Williams went to Grambling State and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXII with Washington.
“It was basically a mutiny,” the source told the Times. “(The team) rode the bus all that way (to Indianapolis), and then come back and are disrespected like that (in Tuesday’s meeting).“(The team) is standing together because they don’t know if anybody else is standing with them.”
Linebacker Steve Orisakwe also tweeted this about Frank Pogue, the president of the university:
Every week we go against the opposing team, they're fans, our "fans", and our president..
— Steve Eaux (@Django_30) October 16, 2013
Williams was fired after the team started the year 0-2 after going 1-10 last year. However, they haven't improved under Ragsdale and are now 0-7.
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