Iowa football players value opportunity to vote, ‘uphold my responsibility’

IOWA CITY — After Tuesday’s Iowa football practice, defensive line coach Kelvin Bell had a final message for his players.

“Make sure you go vote,” Noah Shannon said, remembering the message.

Bell’s message seemed to resonate with Shannon, who is among the Iowa football players who either already voted or had plans to vote later on Tuesday.

“For me personally, being of color, I know that’s something that we really fought for,” the senior defensive lineman said. “I just want to uphold my responsibility and pay my respects to my past generations who really fought for that and wanted our voices to all be heard.”

Quarterback Spencer Petras took advantage of early voting in Johnson County last week to do his “civic duty.”

“You have no right to complain about anything if you don’t go out and make your voice heard,” Petras said.

The Iowa Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, known as ISAAC, set a goal of 90 percent of Hawkeye athletes voting.

Increasing athletes’ opportunities to vote has been a focus not just in Iowa City, but in athletics departments across the country.

The NCAA approved a rule in 2020 that required all Division I athletes to “not practice and compete, among other countable athletically related activities” on Election Day.

That took away a practice opportunity for the Hawkeyes ahead of their game against Michigan State.

“We can find time on our own to go out and vote,” said Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell, who was planning to vote later in the day. “You don’t got to give us the whole day off to go vote.”

It also affected Election Day in 2021, when there were several key local elections.

“I understood at the federal election level, presidential election,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said. “But when I heard last year that I think dog catcher was like the most prominent office being voted on, it seemed a little strange.”

The NCAA revised its rule this year to allow teams playing in season to simply take a day off for “civic engagement” in the 15 days before or after the season.

The new rule allows a team to make what would have already been an off-day as the designated civic engagement day. Iowa football picked a day last week to host a voter education presentation from the university’s “Hawk the Vote” initiative.

“We do live in the greatest country, and one of the rights we have that's so valuable is to get an opportunity to go vote,” Ferentz said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com