Stanford’s Elijah Higgins one of 11 to sign letter to Larry Scott

The Pac-12 Player Unity Movement has taken the sports world by storm. By every sense of the word, change is coming, one way or another. While their letter published in the Players’ Tribune got the majority of the headlines, Sports Illustrated got their hands on a letter penned by the Players themselves, and their Player Representative Team.

One of those players on said team is Stanford Cardinal WR Elijah Higgins. He is joined by Washington State’s Dallas Hobbs, Arizona State’s Cody Shear, Oregon State’s Jaydon Grant, Cal’s Valentino Daltoso, USC’s Chase Williams, Oregon’s Jevon Holland, Washington’s Joe Tryon, Arizona’s Malik Hausman, Utah’s Nick Ford and UCLA’s Otito Ogbonnia on the letter.

The letter, penned the same day as the release of the demands, states that the group is looking to have daily Zoom meetings with Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott as well as their athletic directors. The goal is to outline their concern over playing a football season during a global pandemic as well as the systemic racial injustices ‘imposed by NCAA sports that disproportionately exploits Black athletes’ among other items.

The letter states that the Player Representative Team is speaking on behalf of the hundreds of players who are choosing to opt-out of football camp, practices and games until their demands are met.

Scott, who penned a copied and pasted response, closed his remarks back to the players with a ‘look forward to finding a convenient time to speak later this week.’ Not exactly progress.

The letter from the players can be found in its entirety here, while Scott’s response in full can be found here.

We’re a few weeks away from the expected start of camp so it would be nice to see some more progress begin as early as this week. Or even as early as the players asked: Yesterday.