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To get Nebraska, you really have to spend a winter there. When I was growing up in Lincoln, the cold made the world a small place. You stayed in your house to avoid the deep freeze just a short distance from the front door to the car.So fall is not to be wasted, and on Saturday afternoons Id watch the downtown fill with red -- red scarves and sweatshirts and jackets with the Huskers logo. So many people poured into Memorial Stadium on game day, they made it the third largest city in the state. All to watch the Huskers play football.Back then, I went to the most diverse high school in Nebraska in Lincoln High, and at the time, minority students made up less than 10 percent of the enrollment. Compared to the population of the city, the Huskers were a paragon of diversity, but you would never hear people talk about race when it came to football players.Nebraska was a football factory before the BCS money arrived. The young men who wore the uniform were football players first, and that was it. The team occupied a lofty space that was just a little bit closer to heaven and definitely above race -- and those boundaries were enforced by an authority structure that was predominantly white.When 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first sat for the national anthem this season, the criticism came quick and hard like a flash flood over the prairie. The deluge didnt quiet him, and last week the ideas that Kaepernick now kneels for came to Nebraska when three Huskers, including Michael Rose-Ivey, knelt during the anthem. Nebraska has become more diverse, and so has my alma mater. Race and injustice is no longer a conversation limited to the Native American people we took the land from.Yet it was still something of a shock to see Ivey, standing at the podium in front of the big red N and discussing police injustice in black communities. He said someone told him that he and his two teammates should be lynched or shot for kneeling. He quoted from Martin Luther King. He discussed his own commitment to the idea of racial justice. He was informed and laid out the very real schism that exists in our country.Nebraska football gave him that platform.In the Nebraska that I grew up in, its hard to imagine how Ivey, or teammates Mohamed Barry and DaiShon Neal, would have kept their scholarships. Even one university regent reportedly told the the Lincoln Journal Star the players should be kicked off the team, although hes since walked that comment back.This has been real life in Lincoln and a lot of other college towns; critical thinking required of the college student is rooted out of the football player. Its a contradiction that has always made an oxymoron of football scholarship.My first published piece, a letter to the Lincoln Journal, criticized funds earmarked for a new practice facility instead of needed repairs to the library. What does a fan give up to root for a team, to turn over some measure of judgment in exchange for that community in focused pursuit? Its not without cost. As Nebraska put football first, defensive lineman Christian Peter was convicted four times of assaulting four women from 1991 to 1995 while playing for the Huskers.Nebraska was where I learned that games need to be taken seriously, for what is bad and for what is good.The weekend that Kaepernick was spotted sitting during the anthem was one of those moments. Black athletes risk being lampooned, cut, excoriated and exiled for bringing their own experience of injustice into the workplace. The fact that most of the NFLs fans and coaches are white while most players are black, is a dynamic that plays into this.For generations, white coaches have wanted the talent, speed and sweat of black players, but didnt have much use for their opinions. Football, more than most, is a sport that values the subjugation of personal needs and ideas to what works best for the team.What Kaepernick said about his gesture has merit -- the kind of merit that once you hear it and if any part of you can relate to it, is hard to get out of your head. Last week, I spoke to Giants running back Rashad Jennings and he discussed the third verse of the national anthem that invokes slavery. Ive written about tennis player James Blakes pivot to activism after he was roughly taken down by police as he waited for a car to the 2015 US Open. Last year, I spoke to then Ebony senior editor Jamilah Lemieux after Michael Bennett and Richard Sherman discussed Black Lives Matter from the podium in Seattle.Heres what she said a year ago: Regardless of their political beliefs, I would wager that most black male athletes know how easily they could end up a hashtag after a police encounter, said Lemieux. As it relates to social issues, outspoken celebrities have always been in the minority. However, the scope of the public conversation around police violence and access to social media are making it harder for people in the spotlight to remain silent.It was prescient.Kaepernicks actions arent out of the blue. What may be more surprising is the response from the 49ers and the NFL. San Franciscos ownership family is unique in that the team is owned by Denise DeBartolo York and run by her son Jed York.They recognize the progressive, tolerant culture of the Bay Area, and were the first NFL franchise to announce they would be applying the Rooney Rule to their own job searches at the team level.The team is coached by Chip Kelly, an unconventional coach who has publicly backed Kaepernick when directly criticized. Then there is the NFL itself, which despite flyovers at games and flags the size of football fields, said standing for the anthem was recommended, but not required.If Kaepernick played for another team in another town, he might not have found that tolerance. Once he did, the idea was out there that players have the right to protest in their own way even though many fans dislike their actions.Thats how an idea moves from the Pacific coast and inward, to more conservative towns and different climates. It reached a high school Camden, New Jersey, when coach Preston Brown and the Woodrow Wilson Tigers took a knee for the anthem. It reached Indianapolis when the entire roster of the WNBAs Fever did the same during the playoffs It has reached the womens national soccer team with Megan Rapinoe and across countless strata of American fields.Now the idea has worked its way to my hometown in Lincoln.Im not a fan of the Cornhuskers in any conventional sense. Ive been a sportswriter too long. But this week, I can say that Im proud of Nebraska football for letting a young man speak his truth and reveal so much about himself, and the work that still needs to be done to make the world a better place. Air Max 97 Cheap China . The team said Saturday that Lopez was hurt during its 121-120 overtime loss at Philadelphia on Friday. The Nets said they would issue another update next week after consultation with their doctors. Air Max 97 Clearance . 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Baylor offensive lineman Rami Hammad is facing felony stalking charges after his former girlfriend reported several instances in which he tracked her down, harassed her and twice physically assaulted her, including once at Baylors athletic facilities on campus.On July 7, the former girlfriend noticed Hammad waiting for her after class. She asked for help from the professor, who took the woman into her office, and Hammad began continually knocking on the door, according to the arrest affidavit. The professor first tried to call Hammads coaches, but when no one in the athletic department was available, she placed a call to Baylor police.Baylor officials would not provide details on this particular professor but said that all faculty receive Title IX training and that when made aware of an incident, they are to first ensure the safety of the student and then report behavior violating the policy to the Title IX office.Hammad, a 21-year-old junior from Irving, Texas, is out on bond after he was arrested Monday and booked into McLennan County Jail on a third-degree felony stalking charge. He has been suspended from all team activities associated with Baylor football, pending resolution of this issue, Baylor officials announced Tuesday.The university offered no further comment, citing federal privacy laws. Federal law allows schools to disclose publicly whether a student has been found guilty in a school disciplinary proceeding of any crime of violence or sex offense.According to the affidavit, police made contact with Hammad on July 7 at the professors office, and investigators spoke to him again on July 11. On both occasions, he was ordered to stay away from the woman, but he was not arrested.At the time, Hammad admitted to police that he had been trying to find the woman by going to her apartment, checking local hotels and even driving through parking lots that she might frequent. Hammad told police that he just wanted to talk to the victim in an attempt to mend their troubled relationship.The woman told police that she had taken extensive measures to keep him from finding her, including driving a different vehicle and subleasing a home in Waco that she said he didnt know about.After the incident at the classroom, the woman reported that on three separate occasions -- July 12, July 13 and July 26 -- Hammad tried to contact her through mutual friends, and he once had a special meal from a restaurant he knew she liked sent to her home. After the last incident, the report states, she was no longer comfortable living in Waco and moved back to her hometown out-of-state.Hammads ex-girlfriend also detailed incidents that started several months ago. She said Hammad physically assaulted her twice: once on March 15 at his home, where he placed his hand on her throat and held her against a wall during an argument, and onnce on June 13, when the two were outside a Baylor practice facility on campus and he grabbed her by the arms and pushed her against a wall.dddddddddddd?Its unclear whether the woman reported Hammad to Baylor officials before the July 7 incident and if the university had started a Title IX investigation.The woman said she ended the relationship in May, but Hammad was a manipulative individual and was very persuasive in his attempts to mend the relationship. She said Hammad would place multiple calls and text messages to her phone, and when she blocked his number, his friends started calling her on his behalf. According to the affidavit, during Hammads pleas to the woman for forgiveness, he would talk of suicide, and the woman said she felt she needed to see or speak to him many times to keep him from harming himself. She said she tried to get help for him through Baylors counseling center, but he would not agree to see the counselors on a regular basis.Its unclear why Baylor police did not arrest Hammad until Monday, and Baylor police officials did not return calls for comment Tuesday. Hammad did not respond to messages left Tuesday.If Hammad is indicted, he would be the fourth Baylor football player charged with crimes against women in the past four years. He is now one of many named in police reports alleging domestic violence or harassment. Former defensive end Shawn Oakman was indicted on charges of second-degree felony sexual assault last month.Defensive ends Tevin Elliott and Sam Ukwuachu were convicted of sexual assault in 2014 and 2015, respectively.Baylor has been under fire for its handling of reports of sexual assault and violence involving football players for the past year. In late May, after the board of regents received a presentation from law firm Pepper Hamilton, whom it had hired to review the schools sexual assault response and Title IX practices, the regents announced the demotion of president Ken Starr to chancellor, the suspension with intent to terminate of football coach Art Briles and probation for athletic director Ian McCaw. Within weeks, McCaw resigned, Briles was fired, and Starr stepped down from all leadership positions at Baylor but stayed on as a law professor.Last month at Big 12 media days, acting head coach Jim Grobe told the press, We dont have a culture of bad behavior at Baylor University. The problems that were dealing with at Baylor and have dealt with at Baylor, to this point, are problems that are probably at every university in the country.After his comment sparked some outrage on social media, he later said that he was referring to the players on the roster, not the former players accused of sexual assault and other acts of violence. ' ' '