For nearly a month, Howard University has been the epicenter of ongoing student-led demonstrations surrounding the school’s poor housing conditions.
More than 150 students associated with the education reform group Live Movement have been protesting outside of Howard’s Blackburn University Center since Oct. 12.
Since the start of the fall semester, students have expressed concern and demanded the school’s administrators address concerns regarding mold inside dorms, lack of COVID-19 testing among other student life shortfalls.
The tentacles of the upheaval at Howard have drawn the attention of the national press, celebrities, and even political figures.
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All of this — the protests, students living in a tent city on campus — has taken place in the backdrop of Howard’s football season.
And the current events on campus have not been lost on first-year Bison coach Larry Scott.
“I think it’s kind of a microcosm of the world that we live in,” said Scott when asked Monday whether the team had been following the developments. “Sometimes we just can’t pigeonhole things to just what’s happening on Howard’s campus. All you have to do is turn on the news and see that it is something happening all over the world.”
Scott, who is often introspective about his place at Howard and establishing a standard as it relates to the football team, didn’t take a side in the student-university struggle.
Instead, he expressed how the experience forced his players not to only be consumed with the sport, and that real-world issues can impact them just the same.
“I think that’s what’s amazing and great about this campus is that they’re seeing everyday life at all facets, you know from top to bottom, on an everyday basis,” said Scott. “This is football but this is an educational experience for them far beyond just football.
“I don’t even say they’re (players) numb to but they’re kind of associated with it in a way that they can try to keep their focus on the things that they’re trying to get done, but yet acknowledge and see, you know, real-life happening right here on their campus.”
