With independence looming for the UConn football program, a lot has been made about upcoming schedules and how the team will manage to find 12 non-conference games a year.
It seems inevitable that part of the yearly schedule will include some combination of the other FBS non-Notre Dame independents — Army, BYU, UMass, New Mexico State, and… Liberty.
Yes, Liberty. The school that no one is particularly enthused about playing and many would be vehemently against. Liberty is far from the only university with antiquated and offensive student conduct policies, but it is the most controversial. Its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., is a national figure who has repeatedly used his celebrity to demean members of the LGBTQ community, as well as advocate violence against Muslims and even a member of Congress. Not to mention he’s also the son of the school founder, who once blamed “the gays and lesbians” for 9/11.
Playing Liberty would mean giving the university a platform not only in Connecticut, but in the largest media market in the country, assuming SNY picks up the bulk of UConn football coverage.
That’s why the university should try to avoid it, if at all possible. David Benedict mentioned at UConn’s Big East press conference that he is in talks with other notable schools to get football games on the calendar. Whispers out of Storrs say that multiple Power 5 programs reached out to UConn directly to try and schedule a game after news broke that the Huskies were leaving the AAC.
So there’s hope. But at some point a game with Liberty is probably going to happen. So here’s what UConn should do:
UConn should designate its first home game against Liberty as an LGBTQ Pride Game.
Let’s be careful here. I want to roast Liberty all day long. I want to spend 4,000 words explaining why the university’s policies are disgusting, and I want to rub in the program’s face exactly how open and accepting a place UConn — and Connecticut as a whole — is.
But this has to be more than that. Otherwise we’re just making a scene to make a point (which, admittedly, is fun, but doesn’t do much good in the long run).
The game should be a celebration of pride, not just an admonishment of hate. A portion of the game’s proceeds should benefit UConn’s Rainbow Center — the on-campus cultural center that advocates for and supports student members of the LGBTQ community. It’ll give people an incentive to buy tickets.
The athletic department should make pride-themed t-shirts that fans can wear to show their school spirit at games in any sport, well beyond this one event. Players and coaches should record messages to play on the scoreboard during timeouts, reinforcing that EVERYONE is welcome at Rentschler Field. At halftime, UConn should take a few minutes to recognize LGBTQ members of its community for their accomplishments. This would be very on brand, especially considering some of UConn’s biggest athletic luminaries are prominent, outspoken members of the LGBTQ community.
It doesn’t have to be over-the-top, but it would have to be visible. It would have to make a clear statement of what UConn stands for and it would need to benefit the community at large.
If we’re going to view scheduling Liberty as a necessary evil as UConn football attempts to survive as an independent, then let’s try to mitigate that evil as much as possible.
Oh, and this would be great to do even if Liberty isn’t on the schedule. In that case, do it against any opponent. Let’s celebrate the members of #UConnNation (ugh) that don’t get the recognition they deserve.
