Ex-UK players Woods, Pelphrey discussed Floyd killing for an hour. ‘Everybody’s hurting.’
After watching — along with America — the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, John Pelphrey called one of his former Kentucky basketball teammates, Sean Woods. The two are close friends who speak frequently. This time the conversation lasted about an hour.
“He feels embarrassed,” Woods said this week. “And I told him, you don’t feel ashamed. . . .
“Everybody’s hurting. I have friends who are white who are hurting over this. John and I talked about it. How can we be this way?”
Pelphrey, who is white, said he all but recoiled in horror when seeing video of a policeman putting his knee into Floyd’s neck. Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man, pleaded that he could not breathe. The policeman did not relent. Floyd died.
“It made me feel awful,” Pelphrey said Tuesday. “It made me feel sick. It’s inexcusable to treat another person that way. I got angry.”
Pelphrey sought insight from Woods, who is black.
“I don’t completely understand what it’s like to be Sean or my other teammates or my friends in how they might feel,” Pelphrey said. “But I do understand my feeling, and being a member of society that I know what right and wrong looks like.”
Other UK players, black and white, also said they were sickened.
Jeff Sheppard, who was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player in Kentucky’s national championship season of 1997-98, struggled to find the words to describe his reaction to the killing on a city street.
“Speechless,” he said. “Just horrified. It was awful.”
Kevin Grevey, who ranks seventh on UK’s career scoring list (1,801 points), said he had to avert his eyes rather than watch the video more than once.
“I must have spoken to hundreds of people about that event,” he said. “How aghast and disturbing and horrific it was. And I could only watch it once. I couldn’t bear to see it again.
“I thought to myself, oh my God, on the heels of the other events that showed African-Americans being basically tortured or accosted or killed, I’m, like, oh my God, what is going on?”
Fred Cowan, whose UK career ended with the 1980-81 season, was touched by Floyd asking about his mother.
“That was the most hurting part,” Cowan said. “That he knew he was going to die and he was calling out for his mother.”
In the aftermath of Floyd’s death, protesters have taken to the streets of several American cities, including Lexington and Louisville. There have been reports of damage to stores and looting.
Former UK players expressed a mixed reaction. They spoke of misgivings about protests that are not peaceful. But they said that systemic racism lasting centuries makes pent-up frustration boiling over understandable.
“The violence doesn’t cure years and years of systemic racism and inequality,” said Detroit Pistons Coach Dwane Casey, a former UK player and assistant coach. “Violence is kind of the frustration that comes about from it. I hope we don’t get that all mixed up with what the real problem is.
“But (violence) is not the answer to cure the problem.”
Kenny Walker, an All-American for UK in the 1980s and the program’s second-leading scorer (2,080 points), saw the killing of Floyd as a potential tipping point.
“I’m not happy with the reaction, the rioting and the controversy,” he said. “But I am happy it is getting the attention that, you know, it needs. These things need to be addressed and talked about and put up to the light.
“And I think this incident is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
With the other recent killings of black men and women (including Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging in Georgia, Breonna Taylor in Louisville), pressure for change mounts, Walker said.
“It’s a lot of pressure on a lot of people,” he said. “And when you put pressure on diamonds, on pipes or anything, sometimes they burst.”
Tyler Herro, UK’s second-leading scorer in 2018-19, tweeted that “change is needed! I stand with people of color and support that everyone needs to be viewed the same. America is a melting pot and if we are all created equally, then we should be treated equally as well. Silence is a form of acceptance. And I will not stay silent.”
DeMarcus Cousins appeared on a tweet with a sign that read, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
Ex-Cat Karl-Anthony Towns appeared in a video posted by the Minnesota Timberwolves of a peaceful demonstration in Minneapolis.
Grevey, who works for the Charlotte Hornets, said he had spoken to several fellow NBA scouts and former teammates about the killing of Floyd and the subsequent protests.
Grevey said the people he spoke with welcomed the protests.
“They said, it’s about time,” he said. “I’m, like, it’s one thing to protest, but the riots.
“He said, ‘Kevin, people can’t take it anymore. We have to do something here in America. We’ve got to stop this (stuff). There’s some anger.’”
