Former USC football player Anton Gunn is NOT among the black lawmakers who have called prospects to warn them off from USC in a bid to retaliate over the lack of a black trustee on the school’s board. Here’s what he had to say:
“Let me be clear. I am outraged by the erroneous stories appearing in multiple media outlets that depict me as contacting USC Gamecock Football recruits and urging them not to attend the university,” Gunn said. “This is simply
not true. I have not in the past nor will I in the future call any USC Gamecock recruits for any reason. I will not play political games with trustees, recruits or with my vote in the South Carolina House of Representatives.
“No member of the South Carolina House should be playing games with who gets appointed to any Board of Trustees. We should appoint the most experienced and qualified candidates. Legislators currently don’t appear to use that criteria when lawmakers horse-trade or when they treat the appointment process like a popularity contest.
“I do believe that the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees needs to have diversity. It is diversity that makes our colleges and universities great. This diversity should be reflected in the classroom as well as the boardroom.”
Makes sense to me. But then, Anton almost always makes sense to me.
It just seems curious that they cannot find a single qualified black person in a state that is 28.5% black as of 2008….and that Simrill is “supporting his constituent,” a Rock Hill lawyer, notwithstanding another constituent (another Rock Hill lawyer) who is a candidate and also black–and a woman to boot!
….but what the racial makeup of the Board of Trustees is and who the members of the football team are have to do with each other is a stretch.