A decision by Kentucky men’s basketball players and their coach, John Calipari, to kneel during the national anthem before a game over the weekend has set off a backlash in the conservative state, which voted, 62 percent to 36 percent, for President Trump in the November general election.
The Kentucky players said they discussed their decision to kneel with Calipari before Saturday’s game at Florida. The gesture, an increasingly common statement of support for social justice measures by athletes, was inspired in part by the mob attack on the Capitol building in Washington, the players said, and so when Calipari summoned several of them to ask what they had planned, they asked him and the rest of the coaches to join them.