Following Oregon football’s Week 3 win over Northwestern, Ducks coach Dan Lanning spoke to a much larger story than his team’s win in their Big Ten opener.
In his postgame news conference at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, Lanning addressed the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on Wednesday, Sept. 10 during a visit to Utah Valley University.
Lanning, in his fourth season at Oregon, spoke at length about Kirk and how he hopes the country can learn from his team’s locker room in how they handled this most recent event.
‘I think the U.S. could learn a lot from our locker room. I think the people of this world could learn a lot from our locker room,’ Lanning said after Oregon’s win at Northwestern on Sept. 13. ‘You walk into that locker room and you’ve got guys of different races, guys of different backgrounds, different religions, and you’ve got a team that loves each other. Like tons of differences. Where they come from, what they deal with and ultimately you have a team that loves each other.
‘I think we’re missing some of that in our country.’
Lanning also mentioned to reporters in Evanston, Illinois that he recently learned Kirk was a Ducks fan, which his widow, Erika Kirk, mentioned in her first address to the country on Sept. 12. As noted by The Register-Guard, part of the USA TODAY Network, the Kirks were at Oregon’s win over Ohio State in Eugene last year.
‘I didn’t know that. I hurt for his wife Erika and their kids. That sort of evil should never exist in our country,’ Lanning said.
‘That’s what it is, evil. I remember having to explain that to my family. I remember sitting down with my kids and explaining what happened. They’re talking about people talking about it at school, and it’s just sad. Every day it seems like we deal with some sort of violence in our country, whether it’s school kids in Colorado, or kids in Minnesota churches.
‘Life matters. I think we’ve lost sight of that, but I wish the world could learn a little bit of something from our locker room because we’ve got a bunch of people with differences and what you’ve got is a bunch of people with love there.’
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