Kirk Ferentz publicly repeated a message Wednesday that he privately shared with his Iowa football players two days earlier.

That he’s a 64-year-old white football coach.

And that he’s still learning about the reality of racism and inequities in our country.

More importantly, Ferentz has expressed to players and media this week that is he willing to listen. Willing to learn. Willing to change. Willing to act.

Protests against police violence and racism were something Ferentz, the current dean of college football coaches, remembers as a teenager in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It rattled him this week, in the wake of George Floyd’s chilling death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, that  there hasn’t been as much progress as he hoped.

“Change is really needed right now,” Ferentz said boldly during opening remarks. "And it’s in our hands to try to do something with it.”

He was speaking about himself, his coaches, his players and yes, he noted, Hawkeye fans.

In other words, everyone.

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