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Sayville football legend speaks out for more student diversity at Wisconsin

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With the football season on hold at Wisconsin, starting quarterback Jack Coan is helping lead a broader effort: increasing diversity among the student population at the Madison campus.

Coan and some 200 other student-athletes last week held a rally and walked together across campus, urging university officials to educate more students of color.

Speaking into a bullhorn during the march on Friday, the Sayville grid iron legend voiced concern that black students make up less than two percent of Wisconsin’s student population.

“No matter what corner you turn, what classroom you walk into, what place you go eat, you’ll be surrounded by white people,” Coan, a senior, said in a report aired by ABC’s WKOW.

“It’s crazy to me that the United States is made up of so many different kinds of people, so many different races, so many different colors of people, but it seems like only one type of person is represented here,” added Coan, who led the Badgers last season to a 10-4 record and an appearance in the Rose Bowl.

The Big Ten conference, along with the Pac-12 and other conferences, announced this summer that due to the COVID-19 pandemic the football season would be postponed until at least spring 2021.

Despite pressure from fans, coaches and President Donald Trump, Big Ten officials have not adjusted that decision. Trump posted a tweet last week saying he had spoken with Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren about “immediately starting up Big Ten football.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1300815396950478849

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Image above from ABC’s WKOW report on Sept. 4.

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