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Josh Heupel praises UCF players; calls sports greatest platform to inspire change

“Sports, to me, is the greatest platform of society,” Heupel said Thursday when asked about his role in educating his football players about social justice. “They come from all walks of life. We’ve got big and we’ve got small. We’ve got Black, we’ve got brown, we’ve got white, but when you come into a team setting, everyone is treated equally.

“You’re ultimately working next to somebody who’s got a completely different background than you do, but all of a sudden you find out there’s a lot of things that are way more similar than they are different.”

Heupel spoke one day after an unprecedented display of solidarity among teams from the NBA, WNBA, Major League Baseball and MLS, who chose to boycott games to protest police brutality.