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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;NORMAN, Okla.\u2014Ty Darlington does not remember the face or name of his teammate who stood up and spoke first. That part doesn\u2019t matter, he says. The words, coming from a fellow player, are what stuck with Darlington.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a spring that has been anything but conventional for the Oklahoma football team, Darlington, the Sooners senior center, has been pulled into so many meetings about non-football issues that it\u2019s tough to keep track of the minutes he has spent listening, talking and listening again. The conversations have blurred, but he remembers key moments. Like when a white teammate stood in a players-only meeting and silenced the room with his raw honesty.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI didn\u2019t come here to be a civil rights activist,\" the player said. \"I came here to play football. But that being said, you guys are my brothers, and I\u2019m going to support you no matter what.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the aftermath of a campus-wide scandal that sparked a national conversation about race and drew attention from coast to coast, it was the Sooners\u2019 decision to stand together\u2014literally\u2014that can, and should, be the lasting image of a movement that will surely be remembered for years.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On the afternoon of March 7, Oklahoma had wrapped up its first practice of the 2015 spring season, bouncing off the field with renewed energy. This was the start of a new era in Norman, as 17th-year coach Bob Stoops had shaken up his staff this off-season by dismissing a couple coaches, bringing in new faces and shuffling others to different spots. \u201CBest practice we\u2019ve had since I\u2019ve been here,\u201D senior linebacker Eric Striker says. \u201CUp-tempo, energetic, a lot more fun than usual,\u201D says redshirt junior cornerback Zack Sanchez, who noticed a \u201Cnew, big chip\u201D on the shoulder of each player, the result of a disappointing \u201914 campaign in which the Sooners went 8-5.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But that high came crashing down within 24 hours. On March 8 a cellphone video surfaced of members of the now-disbanded Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity chapter at Oklahoma chanting on a bus of how they would never accept a black member, even going so far as to reference a lynching.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darlington, who grew up in Apopka, Fla., with a football coach father and former cheerleader mother, says, \"I'm not a black male on this campus. It doesn\u2019t hit me the same way.\" Still, he recognized the feelings the repulsive video would generate. He knew immediately, \"this could be very divisive for our team and our campus.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That night Darlington, a team captain and member of the NCAA governance group, talked with Striker and Sanchez. They all understood this was going to become a big issue\u2014for everyone.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reaction was swift. On the night the video surfaced, Striker posted an 18-second, profanity-laced response to Snapchat in which he accused the same people who sang those venomous lyrics on the bus of congratulating athletes after big wins. He apologized for his language the next morning in another video, but he stood by his overall message. He opened up to a local reporter about his frustration, pain and experience as a black man on Oklahoma\u2019s campus and in society. \u201CI feel like as a young black person, I\u2019m always looked at as a threat,\u201D he told &lt;em&gt;The Oklahoman&lt;/em&gt;. \u201CWe intimidate people without them even getting to know us.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Behind closed doors the Sooners gathered privately for hours, meetings that often grew heated. So many emotions bubbled to the surface that \u201Cthere were times people were about to fight each other,\u201D Darlington says. Striker recalls teammates \u201Cfussing and arguing\u201D as black players tried to explain what it feels like to discover people devalue you because of your skin color. Some didn\u2019t understand the severity of \u201Cwhat this actually meant to our black teammates,\u201D Striker says, so he tried to paint a vivid picture of his reality.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Meetings reached a crescendo when, in a scene Striker describes as \u201Clike a movie,\u201D a player stood and screamed, \u201CSHUT UP!\u201D Players knew they had to come together. Amid a time that could have torn them apart, the Sooners chose to present a united front.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;On Monday, March 9, with the support of Stoops, his staff and university president David Boren (who condemned the fraternity and expelled two students identified as leading the chant), Striker, Darlington and their teammates dressed in black and walked with arms linked through campus in silent protest. Their message was simple: \u201CThis is what we deal with every day,\u201D Striker says. And they\u2019d had enough.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Striker and Darlington talk of late-night meetings that stretched past 1 a.m. and decisions from team leaders not to attend practice or class. \u201CWe &lt;em&gt;want &lt;/em&gt;to play football,\u201D Darlington says. \u201CThere was never a point when we were sitting out because we wanted time off.\u201D What they craved was a campus that understood they weren\u2019t going to downplay or ignore hateful, racist behavior.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One month after the protest, wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt adorned with a photo of Muhammad Ali\u2014a man Striker admires for his activist work outside the boxing ring more than his punishing style in it\u2014Striker says he had no choice but to speak up. And really, it was not out of character for him to do so.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CAs a black man, I am not going to stand for this,\u201D says the political science major, who likes playing devil\u2019s advocate in classes and thinks daily about what he can do to inspire others. As a child he told his mother he was going to change the world. This, he figures, is just the beginning.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CFootball is not forever,\u201D Striker says. \u201CWhen we leave this game, these are the things we\u2019re gonna have to deal with. We had to deal with this issue &lt;em&gt;now&lt;/em&gt;.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Striker had planned to use the spring to \u201Cget back to Oklahoma football,\u201D which to him means putting championship banners in the rafters, not Ls in the win-loss column. After a 2014 Sugar Bowl win over Alabama, the Sooners were hyped last preseason as an inaugural College Football Playoff contender. An 8-5 record wasn\u2019t just unacceptable, it didn't fit with Oklahoma's storied history. \u201CWe could have gone 0-13 last season,\u201D Sanchez deadpans, \u201Cand people are still going to expect a national championship this year.\" Fixing that was supposed to start last month. The focus was set to be on the quarterback race, a new offensive scheme and a defense that wilted too many times last fall.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead, March and April have been peppered with media reports about activism and questions about what\u2019s next, as Striker, Darlington and the Sooners realize the power of their platform. Perhaps students aren\u2019t fully equipped to become faces of a movement, but because they lived it every day they had the influence to be heard. \u201CIt may speak to the values of our society, but people listen to us,\u201D Darlington says.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now, though, the team is O.K. with turning its attention to field. Oklahoma\u2019s spring game begins Saturday at 2 p.m., a welcome distraction from all the peripheral action that has taken place over the last five weeks. Players say football has become their escape, a sacred few hours each week when they pay no mind to skin color. There has been more trash talk than any time Sanchez can remember, with guys playfully jawing that they\u2019re about to humiliate the teammate lined up across from them. \u201CPractice has been our release,\u201D Sanchez says. \u201COn the field, we\u2019re back in our element.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Getting comfortable with new assistants was expedited, too. \u201CIntimacy is built very quickly in times of crisis,\u201D Darlington says. \u201CWe got to know the new staff on a very personal level.\u201D Navigating off-field issues with new faces was never a problem for Stoops, who is \u201Cso proud\u201D of how his team and university handled the situation.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darlington believes there will be lasting ripple effects: Eighteen-hour days together can\u2019t help but bond you. \u201CThis is going to unite us forever, the memory that we did something that mattered,\u201D Darlington says. \u201CThe goal of it was never to make us a better football team, but I do think it\u2019s brought our team closer\u2014and that\u2019s going to pay dividends in the summer, fall and beyond.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Striker, who burst onto the scene after dominating Alabama in the Sooners\u2019 2014 Sugar Bowl win, wanted to spend the spring reaching for more: more sacks, more tackles, more of a leadership position. He found it in an unexpected role, as the face of a student movement. Determined to be defined by something more than his football talent\u2014he was named All-Big 12 in \u201914\u2014Striker\u2019s passion has filtered through the Sooners this spring. In meetings, players insisted on setting aside personal development and NFL draft stock in favor of making social progress.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's been a spring full of the unconventional. But in eight months, Oklahoma's players hope it will provide the foundation for success\u2014both on and off the field.\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-football/2015/04/09/oklahoma-sooners-spring-practice-eric-striker-ty-darlington>