University of Virginia football team united in wake of Charlottesville violence

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The Virginia football team had just completed practice Saturday and was preparing for a meet-and-greet with fans later that afternoon when news began circulating about unrest in this typically quiet college town.

Thousands of white nationalists, some carrying Nazi flags, had descended upon Charlottesville to protest the city’s planned removal of a statue of confederate Civil War general Robert E. Lee.

The Unite the Right rally had been unfolding near the school’s athletic facilities, and players quickly began receiving text messages from friends and family asking of their well-being.

The entire team soon assembled in a common area to discuss the events that later turned violent when protesters and counter-protesters clashed.

Cavaliers coach Bronco Mendenhall informed players that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe had declared a state of emergency in the city, and all school-related functions were canceled.

Following a series of positional meetings, players remained together for some time watching the protests on television before returning to their living areas, making sure not to insert themselves into the turbulence.

“We definitely tried to stay away,” senior wide receiver Andre Levrone said after the team practiced Tuesday.

“The coaches kept us here just in meetings and things. We had the news on. We were seeing what was going on,” he said. “I mean, it was shocking just to see it so close, literally a couple miles up the street. It just goes to show it can happen anywhere.”

Saturday’s demonstrations here resulted in the death of Heather Heyer, a Charlottesville resident killed when a car plowed into a group that had gathered to protest the so-called “alt-right” gathering.

Images of white nationalists wearing swastikas were particularly jarring to Levrone, an African-American whose brother and father served in the U.S. military.

“At the end of the day, racism in our nation, it shouldn’t stand anywhere. It’s wrong,” he said. “Especially this weekend to see things such as the Nazi symbol, I mean, there’s been hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops who have died, and foreign countries as well, who have fought to get rid of such hatred. For that to resurface, it’s a shame to see.”

The weekend chaos also resonated with quarterback Kurt Benkert, especially when he heard from a handful of teammates that they had spotted the dark gray Dodge Challenger responsible for Heyer’s death parked in a lot adjacent to the Cavalier Inn.

White nationalists in town for the rally were staying at the Cavalier Inn, according to Mendenhall, only a few floors below some of the football players who have been residing at the area hotel during training camp.

The entire ordeal proved to be unifying, Benkert indicated, after he along with other white players listened to and processed the concerns of African-American teammates.

“For me, it’s just you’re not going to make anything better if you just show more hate,” Benkert said. “That’s kind of the approach I want to take, and it’s a hard one to take. People are hurt, people are killed, and there’s a lot of bad going on, but I feel like if you only bring hatred to that, it doesn’t make the situation any better.”

Earlier Saturday morning while driving to work, Mendenhall had witnessed a portion of the security measures for the rally with law enforcement using John Paul Jones Arena as a staging area. The second-year coach recalled at that time beginning to formulate the message he wanted to deliver to his players.

Upon absorbing Mendenhall’s remarks, standout linebacker Micah Kiser, one of the team’s senior leaders, urged a display of team unity.

On Monday, the entire team went to the school’s famed Rotunda for a picture of players with arms linked.

“We saw a lot of the torch-carrying white nationalists,” said Kiser, a preseason all-ACC selection. “They were walking down the lawn and on the Rotunda kind of claiming that space as theirs. We wanted to say, ‘No, that’s not your space. That’s our space.’”

Mendenhall welcomed the way his team got behind Kiser.

“They stand together, and they stand united embracing in Micah Kiser’s words the differences and respecting the differences and valuing the differences,” Mendenhall said. “That’s where our team is.”