Bjork Holds Latest Aggie Town Hall
Nov 17, 2020 | General
Athletics Director Ross Bjork once again answered questions from the 12th Man as he held his monthly Aggie Town Hall on Tuesday afternoon. You can watch the event below, and we've also got select quotes from the session.
Have a question for Ross? Use the form below to submit.
Can we start off with a little ‘where we stand’ and what we know when it comes to football’s schedule?
So it's one of those things. I'll tell you what I know. And then there's probably some things I don't know, at this point in time. And what we know is we're not playing this weekend. Obviously, we had to postpone. The rest of the games, as of today—and this is Tuesday afternoon, a little after 3:00—all the other games are on schedule within the SEC. So that's a good thing. The SEC has the goal of playing all the games as scheduled on November 28th, so that's important. You’ve got rivalry games, all those things, it's Thanksgiving weekend. And then after that, starting on December 5th, that's where they're going to look at reshuffling things, depending on what happens, depending on where programs might be with the virus, with protocols, those sort of things.
So right now, we're playing Auburn on December 5th and Tennessee on the 12th. The Ole Miss game was flexible, if you will. But I really can't sit here and tell you what's going to happen after November 28th. Our goal is to get to November 28th. Let's be healthy. Let's play all those games. I know that's the SEC’s goal, and then let's get all the rest of the games in. There's a complication with Alabama and LSU, because if Alabama's in the championship game, then that doesn't give them enough dates to get that LSU game in because LSU and Florida had to be rescheduled. So there's still some moving parts. So what I do know is we're not playing the 21st. We're playing on the 28th. We hope those games get in. We hope we all stay healthy after that. Guys, it's all just going to be up in the air. And we also passed something, the ADs did, where we could find out on a Sunday or Monday that we're playing somebody on Saturday. Who were playing and where we're playing, that will not change. So we know our last four opponents That's not changing, home and away is not changing. But playing Auburn on December 5th? We may be told on that Monday, hey, you know what, we had to switch and you're now playing Ole Miss or you're now playing Tennessee. And we just have to be ready to be to be nimble. Coach is aware of that as well, and that's where we are with this whole virus.
Will there be individual basketball game tickets for sale, or is it just going to be for season ticket holders?
We hope so. The plan is that we will have some individual game tickets for sale. Basketball is going to be challenging with contact tracing, the number of players, all those things. And so we've all expressed our concerns about how does basketball work? But as far as the fans, we just went through our season ticket allocation process. We've kind of let the dust settle a little bit on that. We want to see where some of those numbers are. We know that students are going home for the holiday break and finals are all online. So we anticipate there being some individual game ticket sales, and we'll have details on that as we get closer to our first home game.
What are your plans for dealing with student-athletes kneeling for the anthem like they did in volleyball?
Our job every single day is to support our student-athletes, period. That's why you're here. That's why I'm here. Everybody involved in this production. We're here to support our student-athletes, and the last time I checked, freedom of speech is alive and well in this country. It's alive and well at Texas A&M. In fact, Texas A&M just won an award for having the ability to have free speech on our campus. We just won an award for that. And so all of this ties into what's happening in our country right now. There's people that are hurting. Our black student-athletes have been hurting all summer and beyond. And so we've been working with them. We've been trying to empathize and listen and provide opportunities. The protocols of the lining up for the national anthem, that's all set by the SEC. So the teams are out there on the court for the national anthem. How student-athletes choose to express themselves? That is their decision. We've had a dialogue about it. We were proactive in this dialogue. We talked to them about, hey, here's the pros and cons. Here's what you may face if you do this. We've also had our soccer team do it, and I think we also need to anticipate that this could happen in other sports. We have basketball coming up. We have baseball, we have softball. They're all lined up on the diamond for the national anthem. And so our job here is to support our student-athletes, and that's the bottom line in all of this. We need to do that and we need our donors, our former students to support our athletes. All of us were in college at one point in time, and this is part of the learning experience. But it's also part of, hey, we want our country to be the best that it could be. And this is the student-athletes’ way of expressing that. The actions taken this school year already, with the Aggie Commitment, and then our student-athletes with B.L.U.E.Print (standing for black leaders who undertake excellence) are actions already taken. This isn't just verbiage. These things aren't just spontaneous right there. There's been a lot of dialogue. We have the UNIFIED patch on all the uniforms, and we have different T-shirts with different sayings. And again, the goal here is to unify. Look, we know people may have different thoughts about the anthem, and that's fine again. That's why it's a free country. The last time I checked, freedom of speech is alive and well, and the reason why they're able to express themselves is because of the First Amendment and because people have fought for those freedoms. And again, we're going to support our students. If we have to err in any direction, we're going to err on the side of our student-athletes every single time.
Why can't the Aggie Band perform at halftime? Players will be off the field. What is the difference in 100 players, plus coaches, staff being together on the sideline in the locker room and allowing the Aggie Band to perform at halftime? The band already lives together in the dorms.
Yeah, you know this is a tough one. And honestly, it just comes down to what's the best health and safety measures for everyone involved? Not just the team, but our fans and the 12th man and the students and the Corps. And so, believe me, this was studied for several months by the SEC Medical Advisory Task Force. And again, they're the experts, right? You have doctors on there. You had epidemiologists on there. You had industrial hygienists on there. And they they did all kinds of analysis. And they just said, you know what? This is one less thing that could impact anything. It could impact staff. It could impact the band itself. And we've seen the University’s had to report clusters, different clusters around the Corps. And that's included the band. So it just was one of those things that just came down to, look. The best advice is don't have them on the field. It's a one-year issue, and you know we don't like it. It just was the safest approach. You can debate that, just like people debate masks and things like that. But it just came down to the health and safety of everyone involved. And that was the decision that was made by athletic departments, by university presidents, by the band leadership. And luckily, we've been able to do it in a virtual setting and show it at halftime. We have the best band in the world and we want to showcase it.
Do you give the student-athletes a choice to wear a mask or not when they are playing?
Here's the protocol. When you're active, whether you're working out or playing in a game, a mask is not required. Basketball has taken the extra step where most of the team, I think all the team at least at the practices that I've been at, the entire team is wearing a mask the entire time. It's not required. They're taking it an extra step to be as cautious as possible. So that's something that each individual team has the ability to fluctuate. But the standard is, if you're in activity, you don't have to wear one. Now when you're on the bench, on the sideline…football is not perfect because there's so many moving parts to it. But basketball, volleyball, when you're on the bench, you need to wear the mask. That’s what the medical advisory group came up with. Again, we're not perfect in football. There's work to be done, but that's our protocol. If you're inactive and you're on the bench, put the mask up, pull the gaiter up. If you're working out, it's not required. Some people some programs can take that extra step if they want.
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