GREENSBORO — Their schools are different. Their teams are different. Their leagues are different. Their skin color is different.
And yet, in this moment in time, the basketball coaches at UNCG and N.C. A&T have a lot in common.
Wes Miller and Will Jones are communicators as well as coaches. And they’ve talked openly and often with their players about justice in the time before and since the remarkable strikes by pro athletes that started with the Milwaukee Bucks’ refusal to take the court for an NBA playoff game Wednesday.
The Bucks were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday. They started a movement that has spread to soccer and baseball, hockey and tennis, trickling down to college sports practices.
“Our universities have an unbelievable rivalry,” A&T’s Jones said, “but now is a time for unity in a larger sense.”